Fearing difficult travel and not having a team to break trail with me this morning I headed for Snowbasin hoping to get out into adjacent backcountry terrain. I hooked up with off duty snow safety worker GR Fletcher who tentatively agreed to join me to go look at the snow (like the rest of us, he is tired from working and skiing through this prolonged period of storms). I very much appreciated a local being with me to bounce thoughts off about the snowpack. We looked at terrain to the west of the Snowbasin ski resort above the city of Ogden. We were generally on windward terrain that had some large drifts that were not cracking when we jumped on them. Large cornices were formed on the lee side of this terrain. Winds were slightly breezy from the west but not too bad. Temperatures remained fairly cold but I did note some sun crusts on southerly facing slopes later in the day.

We got into some terrain that was not wind affected with soft powder on the surface. There was 8 to 12 inches of new snow over another 15 to 20 inches of settled snow from Sunday. The newest snow was sensitive in the morning while the snow safety did their control work. We did not find it very sensitive in the afternoon.

Trail breaking was difficult with a punchy upside down feel to the snow caused by lighter density snow about 2 feet into the pack. This lighter density snow was more then likely very light density snow from early in the storm on Sunday. Stellar crystals are visible through this entire section making it difficult to distinguish between the new snow-old snow interface. Regardless, the important thing is that it’s lighter density snow under heavier density snow which is a slab. This layering did not produce clean shears in areas we visited today. It didn’t seem like it was a big issue but it’s best to let it settle for a day.

This layer should settle out rapidly and become stable, however, it is similar to layering on Saturday which produced some unexpected natural activity mid day more then likely due to accelerated creep rates caused by solar radiation. This natural activity was reported from the Park City Resort snow safety team (thanks Colin, Dave and Mark for your continued excellent observations) and occurred sometime mid day on Saturday. Light density newer snow stellar crystals were the weakness which is similar to the layering I found today. Again, while I wouldn’t expect widespread natural activity on Tuesday due to this layering, but I do think it’s worth a mention with clearing skies in the weather forecast for Tuesday.