Buried Facets Near Becker Peak

Coverage in this area remains thin below 8200 to 8400 ft. We chose not to descend to Echo Lake due to the numerous rocks, logs, trees, bushes and other obstacles that still exist. The snowpack that did exist in this area was becoming wet and worm on sun-exposed aspects and remained cold on N aspects. 

The snowpack in this area had about 25cm (12 in) of recent snow resting on top a thin crust on sheltered northerly aspects. Below this crust, a well-developed layer of loose weak facets existed. In most areas, the new snow has not become cohesive enough to act a slab layer and little to no signs of instability were observed. However, in places where some wind loading had allowed the recent snow to become slightly more slab-like and where the crust remained thin, snowpit tests yielded inconsistent results with some tests indicating that fractures can propagate across the facet layer and some indicating that if the layer does break the resulting fracture may not travel very far (unstable results -> ECTP x 2 and CT11 SC | other results -> ECTN and PST 40/100 SF). In more exposed areas near the ridgeline, a thicker crust with less weak snow existed below the recent snow.

On S and SE aspects, the warmer temperatures and sunshine caused the snow to start becoming wet and sticky by 11 am.

No significant wind slabs were noted in our tour, but we did not access the ridgeline between Becker and Talking due to poor coverage.