Supportable snow at Blue Lakes

Great riding conditions today around Blue Lakes, with a foot of cold, loose snow above a supportable and strong mid-snowpack. Unfortunately this strong mid-snowpack is above weak snow from our early November storm, and we didn't get any feedback from the mountains today without taking our shovels out and looking for it. Everywhere with enough snow for good riding, we were able to find weak snow at the bottom of the snowpack. Below +/-8,000ft, the weak facets were moist but hadn't formed any bonds yet between grains. At higher elevations the facets were still cold and dry. From a distance, we couldn't see any previous avalanche activity on the avalanche prone slopes at Border Ruffian, but we did find partly obscured debris piles towards the bottom of some paths. Large surface hoar was observed, especially on cold, open slopes. Towards ridgetops, the surface hoar was still visible and glistening, but close looks showed it was mostly knocked down by winds. Winds and cloud cover increased significantly by 2pm.

Pic 1: Signs of settlement, which coincides with the strong mid-snowpack observed today.

Pic 2: Although we found evidence of previous avalanches, it was obscured by additional snowfall.

Video: We had to dig to get feedback from the mountains today.