Back to Electric Bowl, some of the best skiing so far this year. Total snow depth 65" at 9500'. Tuesday 9" of low density snow, and Thursday another 6" or so with little wind with the exception of summit ridges. Snow skied like 16" plus despite good settling in Tuesday snow. Did not find evidence of northern hurricane winds from Tuesday a week ago, at least in the areas we were in. East facing slopes have 3/4" breakable suncrust underneath Thursday new snow and would expect an even stouter crust on southern exposures.
Cloudy cool day with SW winds 10-15 at ridgelines and snow flurries all day. Lots of low density snow to transport as winds pick up with incoming storm on Sunday. Trees just off ridgeline still loaded with snow, and when temps warm Steve remarked tree bombsmay require wearing your helmet.
Surface snow obviously very weak, found 2-3 mm surface hoar formed between Tuesday and Thursday snow with shovel tilt test. Isolated column test found failure CT 15-17 Q 1 on nsf? buried 16" in older snow from before last Tuesday storm, but would not propagate in ECT.
Cornices sensitive at ridgelines, would crack and run although not very far. once off ridgelines, sluffing on steep slopes was only hazard. All this will change with Sunday's forecast, but failure most likely between old/new snow interface.
Any deeper that 18" or so the snow swiftly went from 4 finger to 1, and have no concerns about deeper snow instabilities this year on plateau. Mammoth-Cottonwood snotel now at 111% of normal, and it has been a while since I have seen snow as deep down the canyon clear to Fairview.
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