A foot of new snow in Hope Valley

In general, a poor visibility day in Hope Valley due to winds and snowfall rates, with an approximately 45 minute break shortly after noon. During that time, we had good views of avalanche paths on Stevens Peak and Red Lake Peak above Crater Lake, and did not see any natural activity. Kicking steep rollers and performing mitt pits indicated a storm instability about halfway through the new snow, though cracks did not travel far. On cold slopes we found it easy to push the basket side of our poles through the previous surface crust and into the facets below, or to reach through the crust and pull out a handful of these almost 2mm weak grains. We did not travel through wind loaded terrain, so we did not encounter obvious slab conditions on the surface. Instead, the new snow was soft and unconsolidated.

Pics 1 and 2: Cracking within the new snow did not propagate far, but we avoided big, steep slopes today.

Pic 3: A foot of low density snow on top of a weak crust and weak facets. An ECT did not propagate, which was probably because the new snow was not yet very slab-like at this location.