Observation: Public

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

We traveled through the east side of the Crystal Backcountry skiing Bullion Peak NE Face, Crown Point West Face of the summit (Ian's Slide), and Pick Handle Ridge. We found the 11/17 Rain crust(MFcr) to be down 15-25cm down and generally averaging 18-20cm below the surface. The new snow on top of the 11/17 MFcr was well bonding and didn't even "scrap clean" while skiing over it in steep terrain (but we obvioauly still felt it). The 11/17 MFcr was ski supportable but not always boot supportable. The newer snow on top of the 11/17 MFcr isn't very cohesive and doesn't have much structure at this point. While traveling on the ridge between Bullion peak and Crown point (a typically heavily wind affected area) we observed less wind-affected snow than typical and in the places where there was wind redistributed snow, it was only 10-15 down the leeward side. In several small slope tests, we couldn't get anything to go or even shooting cracks. We skied several slopes over 40 degrees with no results. HS was 85-115cm