Return to Spooner

After an early departure due to a mechanical on our last visit two days ago, we returned to Spooner to see more of the snowpack. As soon as we left our previous tracks, it was obvious the storm snow had settled more over the last 48 hours. Although the surface snow remained cold and dry, with surface hoar nearly everywhere, the snow below the top two feet had gained strength. Where we trenched to the facets at the bottom of the snowpack two days ago, today we could ride aggressively without major stucks. In a few places that surface hoar existed on the surface today, I tried to find previously buried surface hoar, but couldn't. Instead, there was a dense layer of snow at the bottom of last weekend's storm snow that probably crushed any surface hoar it landed on. I dug to the Dec 1st facects and found them to be fist hard, with one finger hard snow immediately above them. 

Pic 1: Settlement cones even on very cold slopes

Pic 2: Dec 1st facets, just to the east of the pindrop, were still weak

Pic 3: Yes, the view is nice, but zoom in to see the surface hoar. It seemed to be growing taller on W aspects than E, though it existed on both. No wind observed in this area today.