Castle Peak Observations

We went back to the Castle Peak area to look at the widespread wind slab and storm slab instability we encountered yesterday.  New snow in this area in the last 24 hours was up to an additional 1 foot.  More sun this morning than forecasted as we left the office turned back to mostly cloudy skies throughout the day with some increasing SW winds into the early afternoon.  As we moved up through the terrain we took advantage of many test slopes to look for instability.  We had no cracking or signs of instability with storm slabs below and near treeline.  Wind slabs in near and above treeline terrain had minimal cracking along with some cornice collapses, but no slab propagation.  We also did crown line profiles on the avalanches that occured yesterday with snowpack tests showing propagation not likely at both locations.  These storm snow instabilities have gained considerable strength within the last 24 hours and are no longer reactive at this location.  We did find evidence of another natural wind slab avalanche that occurred yesterday on the north side of Castle Peak.  Snow surface conditions were developing a thin sun crust throughout the day when solar radiation was present.  Lower elevation snow was becoming wet and heavy by midday.