Strong snow protecting buried facets In the Ophir Creek Drainage.

6-8 inches of soft unconsolidated snow still remains on sheltered slopes. The upper snowpack has continued to settle and consolidate. Observations and snowpit data in this area showed a layer of strong stable snow resting on top of the old December facet layers. Snowpit data showed that these old facet layers remain weak and that if they do break fractures can travel through them. However, data also indicated that actually getting force to penetrate down to these layers would be difficult because of the thick layer of strong snow above them.

Video: PST showing in the unlikely event that the lower weak layers break fractures can propagate along these layers.

Very little evidence of wind transport by the E and NE winds existed along the ridge lines. Some scoured surfaces existed near ridge lines and some very minor cracking less than 1 ft away from our ski tips did occur on small isolated pockets of leeward terrain near the exposed ridge lines.