Decomposing Buried Surface Hoar and Variable Conditions in Johnson Canyon

Found Dec 4 Surface Hoar in a protected NE facing terrain feature. Buried Surface Hoar was decomposing, and had consistent moderate to hard results on compression tests. Shear quality was Q3 with a Fracture Character of a Break. The buried Surface Hoar is becoming harder to ID under a loupe, but still was still present. Skiing in the area consisted of a wide range of snow conditions, with breakable crusts on SE-S-SW-W to smooth Near Surface Faceted snow on low angled NW-NE-NE terrain. New surface growth was not observed.