Hidden Peak Observations

We went to Hidden Peak today to make snowpack observations.  Air temperatures warmed quickly this morning with sunny skies and active tree drippings.  Moving up through terrain we got off the skin track multiple times to check out the snow conditions.  We dug several snowpits and did snowpack tests to look at some of the older snow weak layers that have been found in other areas, specifically the Jan 29 buried surface hoar layer and the near surface facets.  At this location, we saw limited signs of current instability today with all of our snowpack tests showing no propagation results.  We did investigate a slab avalanche that was reported 2 days ago in this area on Sunday.  This avalanche looked to fail on near surface facets below the new Sunday storm snow.  Snowpack tests at this location also showed that this problem was unreactive.  On East aspects, widespread wet snow existed as we descended below 7500' with roller balls and sticky snow in some locations.  On more shaded NE terrain snow surface conditions improved, but wet surface snow was still found below 7000'.