Our questions arise around the near treeline elevation band as we look for the March 3rd facet layer. Poor visibility kept me from ascending much higher than 11,600ft today. I did not find the March 3rd layer to be reactive on northerly-facing slopes around 11,000ft on northerly-facing slopes. Many of these northerly-facing slopes below 11,000 have a melt-freeze crust down about a foot, also where the March 3rd layer has been hovering for the last week.

New snow drifted onto slick crusts on southeast and south-facing slopes, especially near ridgelines. Throughout the day, new snow accumulation did not receive enough snow to make Wind Slab avalanches much of a concern; however, this will become an issue as we get more snow overnight.

Westside of Rocky Mountian National Park, Never Summer Mountains.

I walked up towards the Grand Ditch then up Opposition Creek and Red Mountain

I dug many quick pits, mostly on northerly-facing terrain, to look for the March 3rd layer but did not find this layer reactive in Extended Column Tests. Many of the northerly and southerly-facing slopes I traveled on today had snow depths of 150-300cm. In all of the pits I dug, I found a melt-freeze crust with some small facets below it about foot to a foot and a half below the surface.

It seems unlikely that you’d be able to trigger an avalanche that breaks near the ground if you are looking at a snowpack greater than 150cm, but there is a small chance you could if you found a slope with a snowpack less than 150cm. Even the basal weak layer I looked at today was starting to gain some strength and did not fall out of the snowpit but was 4 Finger Hard with only one step difference to the other facets above it at 1 Finger hard.

In a true spring storm day, there was snow, graupel, wind, clouds, and warm-ish temperatures.