Deep Creek snow obs

Toured into and up into the Deep Creek zone today to ski some soft snow and assess snowpack structure. Cool temps when we left the trailhead, though as we started to crest the ridge the sun's solar was having a strong affect on the snow in the canopy, resulting in lots of snow bombs and moisture dripping from the trees. We had calm to no winds all day with intermittent clouds and fog. On our Northern aspect of the ridge we observed widespread rimed precipitation particles as well as surface hoar crystals. 

Around 7800' we dug a pit, a snow depth of 126cm with our facet layer sitting at 41cm. After our recent bout of storms there are a few layers to look at, notably 2 seperate rain crust layers. The facets below our December 1st storm appear to be starting the rounding process and still feel dry to moist from our wet precip in the last cycle. For our stability tests we got: CT22SP's and we got two ETX's in the same pit location. 

Overall stability under ski and foot felt quite solid with all this new weight and settlement. No Whumpfing or cracking was observed. Very small cornice features were observed on the most exposed of ridgetop features at this elevation band, these were reactive but only to the feature itself. 

Skiing quality was high on our descent, as we skied towards the road out we did find that our coverage is not at full wintertime standards and caution would be advised.