Hyalite Canyon

My partner and I did not skin all the way out to Mt Blackmore, instead we kept it very mellow and stuck to the ridge line east of Blackmore Creek between the hidden lake and Hyalite reservoir. The reason we kept to mellow terrain is because there is close to no snow out in this area. The snow throughout the day will certainly help out in future tours, we saw the flakes falling from the sky for the entirety of our 2.5 hours out in the woods! Stellar dendrites all over the place! Overall, in the dense forested areas there was minimal snow coverage and a whole lot of exposed rocks and logs, not even enough snow to slide. The isolated areas where there was a clearing of trees the snow was considerably deeper, sometimes up to the middle of our calves.

The new snow we saw ranged from 9-10cm in open areas to 4cm in sheltered areas. Underneath the new snow was a crust layer from the last storm that was easily punched through to the basal facet layer. One pit was dug on a NE aspect at 7200' in sheltered trees, total snow depth was 30cm, with 9cm of fist soft new snow sitting on top of a 1cm 1F crust, and 20cm of 1.5mm-2.5mm facets going to the ground. One test resulted in ETCN11 with the failure occurring on the old crust layer. The bonding happening at that crust layer was looking pretty good as the early day snow was denser and had a higher water content. As the day went on the snow became lighter and less dense. Wind held steady all day at a constant rate of 10-15mph with gusts up to 20-25mph coming in from the west/southwest. We didn't end up skiing anything because of conditions, instead we skinned out along the hiking trails, a day in the woods is better than one at home. Hope this helps guys, thanks for all the work you do trying to keep everyone safe. Pray for snow!