Deep Creek observations

Our group toured into the Deep Creek zone today to find some low angle north-facing terrain that might allow us to ski without edging down into the rain crust from last Monday. We found 3-5” of snow above the rain crust, with graupel present throughout our tour beneath the snow from yesterday morning (photo 1). Once we gained the Deep Creek ridgeline, we found some 2-3mm surface hoar in open areas (photo 2) and wet snow on the surface on south aspects. 

Some small, isolated wind drifts remained from the winds during the storm early yesterday morning, and we also saw some surface texture evidence of the northerly winds last night (photo 3). With the exception of some minor cracking in one isolated wind drift, we did not see any signs of wind slab or storm slab instability in any informal tests on our tour. And while winds were light where we were and we did not see any blowing snow nearby, we did see some sustained blowing snow from the NE winds along the distant ridgeline north of Tinker Knob. 

On our descent, snow on north-facing aspects remained cold and soft, and the low angle portions of our run offered very enjoyable skiing where we were able to mostly stay off of the crust.