Deep New Snow on Andesite Ridge

Deep, soft snow greeted us at the Castle Peak Trailhead. Areas the had been dirt last week now had 4 + feet of new snow on top of them. Skinning into Andesite, we noticed the new snow was right side up (light snow on top and more dense snow below). Undercutting steep test slopes on road cuts did not produce any signs of storm slab instability at the lower elevations. As we gained elevation, we started to experience some minor cracking in the new snow but it was still very soft and did not display slab-like properties. We kept expecting to hear or feel whumpfing or collapsing in the snowpack, but we did not notice these things in the areas we toured.

At higher elevations in more exposed terrain, we started to encounter more snow and more signs of wind-blown snow. We saw drifts and small cornices above some slopes. We picked out a few small test slopes that had signs of wind-loading on them to gather data from. Ski kicks on these slopes did produce some small cracking in the drifted snow, but the wind-blown snow was still quite soft. At the base of one of these wind-loaded test slopes, we saw what looked like buried debris indicating that the slope had avalanched during the storm and then reloaded. We moved from there to look at some larger slopes from safe areas in low-angle terrain on the ridge above the slopes. We saw what looked like buried debris at the baes of one of these larger slopes. Pushing snow onto the slope with my pole triggered a small loose sluff in the new snow. 

For our tour, we stuck to low angle slopes and small test slopes not connected to larger terrain.