Wind Effect in Pole Creek

Our AIARE1 class toured into Pole Creek today to look at terrain on Silver Peak, ski north-facing non-avalanche terrain, and investigate the presence of faceting around the January 4th rain crust. Leaving the trailhead in the morning, we saw about 2 inches of new snow on a rain-wetted layer of snow, which disappeared above about 6700'. As we toured through the meadow around 7000' northeast of Silver Peak, we started to observe more wind effect on the snow surface, and could see blowing snow both in the meadow and around the summit ridgelines of Silver Peak. We did not, however, see any natural avalanches. Touring near the base of Silver Peak's NE Ridge, around 7400', we saw more wind-drifted snow and saw minor cracking in the top several inches when we stepped above the skin track in a couple places.

Our teams dug a couple quick pits in the area and did not see any faceting around the January 4th rain crust, which was about 50cm down from the surface at 7150'. At that location, on a NNW aspect, we got a CTH BRK down 35cm. At 7450' on a NE aspect, we got an ECTX result. 

We observed some 1-2mm graupel on the surface, and generally found the ski quality to be good but slightly heavy and slow.