Northerly aspects at Mores Creek Summit have been impacted by winds. A 2-mm surface wind crust layer was formed during the last 24 hours. Wind protected slopes continue to offer excellent skiing.
Popular ski runs at Pilot Peak's Summit Creek ridge were hit hard by the wind event. Many folks elected to ski at "Almost Top of the World" and at "Almost top of the World" and left the place looking like a ski resort.
The BIG NEWS is that snowpack at Mores Creek Summit has become significantly less reactive, with no whumps today, and confidence building stability test results. The only positive result was an easy shovel tilts test failure (STTE) between the old and new snow.
The next link is for the field annotations, obs recording, and trip planning during December 26, 2018.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/66NkNAX1TeEn5pS17
The buried basal facets and surface hoar layers are experimenting rounding and sintering. Hardness is augmenting and test results below the 20 cm were negative (CTN).
The snow surface is primarily composed of "Diurnal Near Surface Facets".
These near surface facets will be covered new snow by tomorrow morning. Mores Creek Summit snowpack is in a transition from a persistent slab problem at the basal layer and buried surface hoar into a NEW persistent slab undermined by near-surface facets.