Mt Judah

I did a quick tour in the Mt Judah area to look at the snowpack and assess the strenthening of the ongoing persistant weak layer.

Soft cold snow throughout the tour with some surface hoar on the lower slopes and snow still in the trees.  Tonight's system was blowing in and the sunny skies became mostly clouded as I was out, with light to moderate SW winds already transporting a bit of snow onto NE faces.  There were medium size cornices on wildflower ridge and the backside of Judah.

With pole probes I could feel a number of density changes and still get down to the deeper facet layer.

I dug a quick pit in a semi protected spot that I had observed the dec11 facets previously, on a NE facing slope at about 7800' above wildflower ridge.  Stepping off my skis I only sunk to about boot top and was supported by a stronger crust without breaking through to the facets.  The dec11 facet layer was still obvious, loose and sugary, and still does not clump readily when squeezed.  Some larger angular crystals are still visible, although there does generally seem to be more rounding going on.  ECTX, and I was unable to separated any of the layers even while prying on them.