Rapid settlement and supportable surface conditions on Mt. Judah.

We chose to tour in the 7,000' to 8,500' elevation range on northerly aspect terrain above and below treeline to look for signs of ongoing instability both within the recent storm snow and on faceted old snow layers just below the old/new snow interface. Conditions have continued to change over the past 24 hours with up to 6 inches of settlement within the storm snow and drastic increases in snow surface supportability. Ski penetration in this area was around 1 foot yesterday and only around 1 inch today in both wind affected and wind protected areas. The top foot of upside-down storm snow was still easy to feel with pole probing.

We dug a test pit at 7,920' on a N aspect in near treeline terrain (noted lat/long) to test the recent storm snow and the old faceted layers below it. CT produced inconsistent results with some SC (sudden collapse) and some no result on faceted snow 95 cm below the snow surface. This was on faceted snow between the 12/22 and 12/24 rain crusts. ECTN results occurred within the recent storm snow with no failure on the faceted old snow layer. PST results indicated that propagation remained likely on the facet layer 95 cm down that had failed as an SC result in the CT. Trigger size would have to be very large to create an avalanche in the snowpack we sampled today.

We observed some signs of avalanche activity in the area on wind loaded NE-E aspects that had occurred during the 1/5 to 1/7 storm cycle (see other observation).