In general, I found about a foot of new snow around Second Creek. The snow surface conditions varied significantly from breaking trail up to 30cm of ski penetration below treeline to not being able to see my skin track or my turns near and above treeline. Below treeline is releatvely then still with only about 120 to 150cm of snow on the ground. I did not notice any signs of cracking or collapsing within with in the new snow or even on open wind-drifted slopes.

Near treeline was a mixed bag, like it is so often around Berthoud Pass of places with areas of 300cm of snow and others with less than 30cm of snow. Most places I probed walking up towards Twin Cone had well over 250cm of snow on the leeward slopes and about 100cm down you couldn’t tell if you hit the ground of just another very hard layer of snow (hint it was very hard layer of snow) once you pushed passed that it seemed like another 150cm of wind-affected snow.

While I did not get to poke around in the alpine much today, I saw one avalanche on the Second Creek Headwall, that would looked to only be within the new snow. The avalanche last weekend in Corner Pocket was already covered and again is a suspect slope. Slopes that have previously avalanched are likely to go again.

Second Creek / First Creek

I parked at Second Creek, then worked my way around Broome Hut.

Second Creek Headwall

While I only dug below treeline today,, around 11,300ft on an east—and northeast-facing slope, they were both open, wind-affected areas. The snowpack here is still somewhat shallow, with heights only around 125cm.

Overall there is about a foot of new snow below treeline on east-facing slopes, this new snow rests on top of a melt-freeze crust which is Knife Hard about 4-5cm thick. While I did not get any propagating results, I am becoming more worried about the facet layer that will continue to grow below this crust. I did a Propagation Saw Test on a layer of facets directly below this crust, and it self-arrested somewhere within this layer before reaching the end of the column (PST50/100Arr). This weak layer is something to pay attention to in the coming days/weeks as it becomes weaker and we continue to get snow.

Meanwhile, it was all relatively weak snow on the northeast-facing slopes above a slope that previously avalanches. The snow height was 126cm, and the entire snowpack was made of relatively soft snow (Fist and 4 Finger hard snow), which was either the foot of new snow or facets in varying stages of development. My Extended Column Test failed with three taps from the shoulder about 30cm from the ground in well-developed depth hoar crystals.

I did not dig near or above treeline today but probed around a bunch, and I seemed to find all the deep spots with areas well over 250cm. I noticed some cracking underfoot, but nothing was shooting ahead of my skis. This cracking was “failing” on a density change of new snow that had not been affected by the wind. Several of these slopes have tiger stripping and pillows of drifted snow, which made for a drum-like sound walking around. These are places that I’d continue to avoid.

It was an overall pleasant day around Berthoud Pass. The winds weren’t too bad, but enough to blow some snow around. It was snowing on and off all day, with maybe 1 inch accumulating throughout the day.