Blowmedowns

Blue skies allowed for good travel around the Eastern side of the Blowmidowns today. The sun had some real punch by midday, as temps hovered around 0, with calm winds. E/SE facing slopes showed loading in higher start zones, while holding smooth, soft snow from mid slope down. These same aspects have had numerous size 1-2 avalanches, from various times, in steeper terrain. Cornices are very well developed, looming, and likely the cause of some of these. Our snow pits today showed good bonding of the newer snow to the most recent rain crust. We found that crust was between 50 and 100 cm in the areas we dug. There were some reactive layers, in the upper snow pack’s new snow, but no propagation was noted in our test.