4' of new snow on Waterhouse

Instasnowpack at Waterhouse today. Challenging uphill travel but no obstacles hit on our descent. Lots of whumphing observed, and we found the very obvious faceted layer responsible at the bottom of recent storm snow.

Pic 1: Wallowing out of skis looking for a profile location. It took hours just to gain 1000ft above parking.

Pics 2 and 3: Cracking within the storm snow. Every steep lump and bump had recently cracked and slid short distances as in pic 3.

Pic 4: A very thin faceted layer (December 11th) at the bottom of the recent snow, likely responsible for all the whumphing we observed today.

Pic 5: Lots of signs of rapid settlement. Might be "good" for settling storm instabilities, but maybe "not good" because of slab development over a persistent weak layer.

Profile: Even though the December 11th layer was far from the surface, it only took 16 taps for an ECT to propagate. Spooky.