Mount Townsend

Quick report

Ascended Mount Townsend's north peak from the end of the decommissioned road, one mile past the little Quilcene trailhead, up the NE slope below the summit. Dug a pit at 5600ft. The snowpack was 125cm thick at that location, skier's right of the run, but just a few hundred feet higher, the middle of the run showed patches of bare ground. There was a 12-17cm layer of wet, slushy snow on top of the first weak layer (fist density). The layer below, between 108cm-60cm, was more firm, starting at 4 fingers at the top and getting progressively more firm toward the next weak layer at 60cm. The layer below that was less firm, an easy 4 fingers all the way through. On a compression test, the top weak layer failed at 2 taps, and the bottom one at 22. On the way down, ski turns produced quite a lot of roller balls and in the steepest section the top layer sluffed in slabs for about 6-9 ft below ski turns. The weather was overcast all day and it started raining lightly around 5:30pm.