On Tuesday a front moved in, supposedly bringing a few well-needed inches. I went back to Reynolds in the afternoon, but with the winds starting to howl from the west, I turned around at Dog Lake. Wednesday was bluebird with temps in the teens, so we visited Bear Trap Fork.
The storm hadn't done much other than shift snow around. The east faces appeared to be wind-loaded, so we stuck to the wind-scoured west. There was some riming too on some of the higher elevation trees.
The southerly half of the compass had a crust from Monday, so we decided to check out a NW facing slope on upper Bear Trap, just below 9990. The pit showed a Q2 shear about 3' down on what appeared to be the interface between the Thanksgiving storm and what followed. Compression tests only showed failure on shovel-at-arms-length. On top, depending on the wind-exposure, was about 1" of surface hoar with about 6" facets below the crust. I'll stick in a profile later.
Heading up to the summit
The view was quite nice:
Wolverine
Raymond
Gobblers
Skiing the trees, so maximise the loud-powder-experience.
