Observations from Deep Creek

Deep Creek has cold shady north-facing slopes that typically preserve weak layers. We knew from previous observations that weak snow existed in these areas. We spent today's tour trying to ascertain if the recent snow had consolidated into enough of a slab on top of the weak snow to cause problems. We probed for weakness throughout our tour and found 8 to 14 inches of soft cold recent snow on top of the old weak snow and crusts. We stomped around in meadows where the facets felt weakest and ski cut small test slopes. We did not trigger any collapses, whumpfs, or test slopes failures. We also dug 7 different test pits. The snowpack structure looked like what we felt during our probing: weak snow under soft cold snow. We targeted the facets near the crusts below the recent snow in our tests. In all but one location the tests did not produce unstable results:

• ECTN 24, N aspect, 7000 ft
• ECTN 28, NE aspect, 7300 ft
• ECTN 27, N aspect, 7900 ft
• PST 100/100 END, N aspect, 8100 ft
• PST 99/100 END, N aspect, 8100 ft
• ECTX, NE aspect, 8200 ft in a wind-loaded test slope.

The one test that did produce unstable results (ECTP 22) was in a small isolated area on a N-facing slope at 6300 ft where some decomposing surface hoar was mixed in with the facets. We did not see this setup anywhere else during the tour despite looking for it. Overall, we found a snowpack with weak snow but without enough of a slab or load on top of it. Even though we did not see any obvious signs of instability, we still chose to avoid steep open slopes, convex rollovers, and any sort of terrain traps in this area because of the poor snowpack structure. The less steep terrain also held better snow conditions, since we did not feel any of the old crusts below the recent snow on the lower angle slopes.  

We also ventured onto the sunny side of the ridge to look for wet snow. We traveled on S and SE between 8200 ft and 7500 ft. A thin sun crust did exist in shaded areas on these aspects, but it was soft in the sunny areas. This thin layer of moist snow remained fast and soft. The snow below that was cold and dry. On the skin back up we did kick off some very small roller balls that rolled downhill without gathering any more snow.