Low clouds and windy near Castle

Windy near and above treeline in the Castle zone today. Widespread riming on rocks and trees along ridges. The upper NW snow field of Castle also appeared to be rimed. A low cloud ceiling made longer range observations challenging.

Just off ridges on leeward slopes the snow was heavy and obviously wind affected, prodcuing some cracking and slab behavior. Snow quality was high in the trees and away from ridges. In Round Valley it was challenging to find the 1/4 rain crust (and remnants are faint). Multiple shovel tilt tests produced similar failures about 6 inches below surface in soft Near Surface Facets. Compression tests quickly squashed the facets without revealing much. Cold temps discouraged us from building an artificial slab to test the facets. Height of snow in Round Valley was 175 cms. 

Photo 1: Clouds moved in around noon and the ceiling dropped as low as 8000 feet. 

Photo 2: Wind was moving snow around over ridges and creating wind slab.

Photo 3: Cornice chunks broken by a ski kick, but no propagation on slope below.