Deep Creek

Today we toured up the N-NW burn area above Deep Creek in the Absarokas. The near surface facets were available in abundance at this location. We observed cracking of the recent snow/ facet interface throughout the day. Wind loading was isolated to the more northern aspects of this slope (photo). Evidence of previous wet loose slides were overserved across the valley on southern aspects. The near surface facets were found to be very weak (photo is of CT5 failure on this interface, column on the left with near surface facets visible to the right) but we were unable to get it to propagate. A few extra hits (6) on the CT column caused a collapse of the column at the depth hoar layer.