Cold, dry snow at Blue Lakes

We made a loop today from the Hope Valley SNO-PARK, that took us up Forestdale Creek and over Forestdale Divide, Lost Lakes and Polaris Bowl, Border Ruffian, and eventually in near treeline, off-trail terrain towards Indian Valley. Throughout the day, several small and inconsequential wind loaded, above treeline slopes were observed. We chose not to expose ourselves to big avalanche paths above treeline. Signs of previous windloading were observed: Tiger striping of the snow surface, and uneven new snow depths including 3ft of cold, dry snow above the Dec 12th crust in gullies, and the crust at the surface on wind exposed slopes. However, very limited signs of slab instability were observed. Test slope after test slope failed to produce any cracking, and snow transitioned from Fist to 4 Finger from the surface to the Dec 12th crust. Faceting and surface hoar were observed at the surface on all but the sunniest slopes, and small facets were also observed just above the Dec 12th crust - especially where the new snow above it was cold and relatively shallow.

Pic 1: N wind transporting snow in the distance. Winds were light with moderate gusts at ridgetop and calm everywhere else.

Pic 2: On a slope where the snow was displaying the most "slab-like" qualities we encountered today, one ECT propagated and one did not. Failure occured on a density change a few inches above the Dec 12th crust.

Pic 3: No need to perform more ECTs here. Someone else did plenty of slope tests, with no evidence of instability from our viewpoint.