Travel today was in Staker Canyon at elevations ranging from 8700 feet to 10600 feet. Travel was predominantly on north facing slopes although I did cross some southeast aspects on the approach. Brett's forecast seemed right on for this area as I encountered many old wind drifts but coudn't get any of them to crack even while jumping on them. Very mixed bag of snow surfaces out there. Snow depths ranged from bare on south aspects below about 9500 to about 3 feet on wind-loaded north aspects around 10500 feet, with most northerly slopes encountered having between 1.5 and 2.5 feet of snow. Deep forested sheltered areas were mostly faceted to the ground, but most more open and exposed areas still had a semblance of a supportive slab in between the 8-12 inches of basal facets right above the ground and the couple inches of surface facets or windboard on top. Dug many quick hand pits and pole probes to check out the snowpack but no formal tests. With current snow depths it is easy to investigate the structure by sinking your pole upside down into the snow. No real red flags observed on this tour however that will likely change as soon as we get a real storm.

I did note an old avalanche in the eastern bowl of Staker Canyon. I couldn't really observe a crown line because I think the top probably re-loaded to an extent during last week's wind event but there was definitely a debris pile that I skied over. It had a bit of new snow on top of it so my best guess is that it was from the Thanksgiving storm. The snow in this part of Staker was noticeably weaker and shallower than most other areas travelled today. I know it's not a particularly popular area to travel but I would imagine it has a very high probability of being a repeater once we get more snow.

Photo 1 shows current coverage looking northeast from the Staker ridgeline.

Photo 2 shows turning conditions in the more supportable and sheltered areas. Not bad, although stump and log avoidance skills are necessary!