Hotel/Yale Creek

Wednesday we were on snowbikes in the Hotel/Yale Creek drainages. We beat the snow up pretty hard on steep short slopes with no signs of instability. There was approximately 1" to 1.5" of new snow within the last week that could have easily been surface frost, frozen fog or just light snow. The weather was mild with clear skies to partly cloudy skies and a minimal amount of new snow falling. There is about 3 layers in the snow pack, the surface was light for the top 1/3, getting ice and crusty on the south slopes. We could hear the ice on the skies. The middle third of the snow pack is pretty consolidated, and the bottom snow pack with the temperature variance with the last weeks of high pressure systems seems to be falling apart and faceting. What we have seen in the last couple of weeks is a pretty solid base, however, with the longer high pressure systems, it appears to be coming apart down low towards the ground. We have seen this in many places in Eastern Idaho lately. Many of the streams are open in the big drainages due to the lack of snow. Places to cross can be challenging.