NW aspect wind slab over facets below Polaris Point and SE-E aspect wet snow below Stanford Rock.

We toured around Stanford Rock today covering the NW-N-NE aspects of Polaris Point in Ward Canyon and E-SE aspects below Stanford Rock in Blackwood Canyon. Our goals were to assess new snow over old near surface facets in the northerly aspect terrain and surface wet snow on the E-SE aspect terrain.

Ascending up to Polaris Point, we stopped to dig a test pit adjacent to the snowpit from Feb 6 on a NW aspect in near treeline terrain at 7,300'. In this area we had the upper snowpack setup of a cross loaded wind slab deposit from the recent storm snow and NE winds on top of weak near surface facets formed during the Jan/Feb dry spell. This snowpack structure was isolated in distribution with this one slope the only spot we found this snowpack structure on our tour today. 

We performed a number of snowpit tests, only getting propagating results where the slab was a little thicker at 7.5 inches and sudden collapse, but non-propagating results where the slab was a little thinner at about 5 inches thick. While we certainly saw indications of instability, I don't think that there are very many other similar slopes out there where a similar snowpack structure exists. This spot is somewhat unique in its characteristics of holding both wind load from NE winds and weak facets.

Continuing on up to Stanford Rock and descending into Blackwood Canyon, widespread bare ground was visible on S aspects with connectable snow cover (for now) on E-SE aspect edges of sub-ridges and gullies. On these snow covered slopes, we had one inch of surface wet snow. This wet snow was the recent storm snow, settled and melting, and well on its way to assimilating with the established melt-freeze layer below it. We ski cut a few steep test slopes and did not trigger any signs of wet loose instability in the 11:30 am timeframe.

Ascending back to Stanford Rock and descending back to the bottom of Ward Canyon we saw no other signs of instability.