On Saturday Dec. 7 Bob Howell skied the upper part of the Libby Creek 
Trail, turning back at the farthest west point where the trail drops down 
towards the creek.  The weather was clear and almost calm.  The conditions 
on this upper part of the trail were good, with a couple inches of new 
powder in the past few days.  There was a sufficient base that only a 
couple spots with open southern exposure came close to exposing rocks or 
bare ground.  (I didn't ski the lower section along the creek, which 
traditionally has less snow cover.)

I met several groups of people snowshoeing/skiing -- a total of 9 people.

At 2:30 PM I dug a snow pit at NAD27 0397561  4576865, elevation 10010 on 
one of the open slopes just south of the upper part of the trail, before it 
descends to the hairpin turn.  This was a 17 deg. slope facing 140 deg 
(SE).  The air temperature was -3C.  The snow depth was 46 cm.  The pit 
showed the following snow pack structure.

  #  Height Temp   Layer comments Hardness   Snow grain structure
      (cm)   (C)
---- 46---------------------------------------------------------------
                    fresh snow     fist       1mm dendritic crystals
  6                                           (with a few mm thick layer of
                                               5mm surface hoar crystals on top
---- 42---------------------------------------------------------------
  5   40     -7                    4 fingers   1   mm rounded crystals
---- 32---------------------------------------------------------------
  4   30     -5                    2 fingers   1.5 mm rounded crystals
---- 21---------------------------------------------------------------
  3   20     -3                    2 fingers   1   mm rounded crystals
---- 12---------------------------------------------------------------
  2   10     -1                    4 fingers   1.5 mm faceted crystals
----  5---------------------------------------------------------------
  1    0      0C    icy            pencil      2   mm faceted but cemented

Shovel shear test.  Working down through the pack
   Slight           force for failure at bottom of layer 5  (32 cm)
   Moderately light force for failure within layer 2 (5-12 cm)

In the Rutschblock test it required a couple moderate jumps to cause failure
within level 2 (5-12 cm).

The car counts were as follows.

                          ------- noon AM -------   --- 4:10 PM ----
                             with    without        with    without
                           trailers  trailers     trailers  trailers
  Below Corner Mountain       0         3             0        0 (4:45PM)
  Corner Mountain Lot         0         0             0        0 (4:45PM)
  Little Laramie Lot          0         0             0        0 (4:45PM)
  Below Barber Lk Rd          0         0             0        0
  B. Lk Rd to Cattleguard     4         1             2        2
  Cattleguard to Turnaround  25         5             7        0
  Green Rock Picnic Gnd. Lot  0         6             0        5
  P. G. to Snowy Range Lodge  0         0             0        0
  S.R.L to Road Closure      14         2            10        4

  Total                      43        17            19        11