Rain Crust at Yuba Pass

We went to Yuba Pass to see how the Jan 4 weakness has changed since we were last there on Jan 18 (details). When we started riding we found a firm rain crust with a dusting of snow on top of it anywhere off the groomed roads. In the morning the crust was frozen, but the warm sunny weather quickly softened the crust on sunny slopes. Our snowmobiles would consistently break through the crust into the softer snow as we were riding off-trail.

We found a spot on a N aspect at a similar elevation to our Jan 18 pit. In today's pit, the weak snow under the Jan 4 rain crust was noticeably more consolidated. All of our snowpit tests showed improvement in this layer with 2 out of 3 tests not getting any failure on this layer. We also did not get any results from snowmobile cuts on steep slopes. We did find some signs that this layer had been active last week like old cracks or small test slope failures. When we got off our sleds and looked at these areas up close we did not see continued signs of instability.