Minor upper snowpack faceting on Stoney Ridge

We toured Stoney Ridge this morning to assess the progression of upper snowpack faceting since we were last in this area on Jan 11. The E wind was brisk and solar aspects remained well frozen.

While some near surface faceting has occurred, it remains relatively minor and the facets not particularly well developed. We dug a snowpit on a N aspect at 7,735' in wind protected below treeline terrain to look at the near surface facets under magnification. The weakest snow (relatively speaking) was right at the snow surface with only very minor faceting observed around the thin rain crust immediately below the surface layer. The rain crust is thin and breakable such that it doesn't interrupt skiing very much.

By far the most interesting thing we saw today was a large blow down tree, likely form the Jan 3-4 timeframe that appeared to have fallen and fractured a wind slab. The tree had fallen directly down slope and the base it was about 25 feet down slope from where it was previously rooted. Powerful event that created a large trigger.