On Saturday Jan. 08 Bob Howell skied the Potholes route to the open meadows on
its upper section.  The weather was partly clear, with thickening cirrus and by 
the end of the day some thin low clouds producing a dusting of snow.  The wind 
was relatively calm.  The conditions on the trail were good, with only an 
occasional rock exposed on the lower open south-facing slopes.  There was 
a few inches of relatively new powder.


I met four other skiers on the trail.


At 2 PM I dug a snow pit at NAD27 13% 0396763 4579992, elevation 10450 ft. 
on one of the open slopes just below where the trail enters the first of the 
upper open meadows.  This snow pit was about 20 ft north of the one from 
Jan. 11, and was also on a 18 deg. slope facing 100 deg (ESE).  The air 
temperature was -9C.  The snow depth was 134 cm, 51 cm more than an Jan. 11.  
The pit showed the following snow pack structure.


  # Height Temp   Comments     Hardness   Snow grain structure
     (cm)   (C)
 ----134----------------------------------------------------------------------
 11  130  -10.0    fresh       fist        0.7 mm dendritic crystals
 ----128----------------------------------------------------------------------
 10  120  -10.5                4 fingers   1.0 mm slightly rounded
 ----119----------------------------------------------------------------------
  9                icy         1 finger    1.0 mm rounded -- welded
 ----118----------------------------------------------------------------------
  8                            4 finger    1.0 mm dendritic, slightly rounded
 ----115----------------------------------------------------------------------
     110   -9.5
  7  100   -7.5                1 finger    0.7 mm dendritic, slightly rounded
      90   -6.0
 -----88----------------------------------------------------------------------
  6   80   -5.0                pencil      0.7 mm slightly more rounded
 -----72----------------------------------------------------------------------
  5   70   -4.0                1 finger    1.0 mm clearly more rounded
      60   -3.5
 -----55----------------------------------------------------------------------
  4   50   -3.0                1 finger    1.5 mm rounded, slightly faceted
      40   -2.5
 -----36----------------------------------------------------------------------
  3   30   -1.5    depth hoar  4 finger    2.0 mm faceted
 -----21----------------------------------------------------------------------
  2                icy         pencil      2.0 mm faceted but welded
 -----20-- -1.0 --------------------------------------------------------------
  1   10   -1.0    depth hoar  2 fingers   2.5 mm faceted
 ------0----0.0 --------------------------------------------------------------


Shovel shear test.  Working down through the pack
  Slight     force for failure at   layer ~ 9/10 interface (~119 cm)
  Moderately force for failure near layer ~ 6/7  interface (~ 88 cm)
  Moderate   force for failure in middle of layer 5        (~ 63 cm)
  Easy       force one shovel penetrates to layer 3        (~ 36 cm)
             but layer 4 is cohesive, so need to get shovel close to
             layer 3 for failure to occur.


In the Rutschblock test:
It required a couple light jumps to cause failure in the upper 15 cm of fresh snow (layers 10,11)
It required multiple hard jumps to cause failure somewhere in layers 7-8.
I could not get the block to fail below this with multiple hard jumps.  However the pack is now
deep enough that I couldn't be certain that I had completely isolating the block down to the
level of the depth hoar.  However it did SEEM more stable than on Jan. 11.


Summary:  There are several thin hard surfaces (#9, #6, #2) which represent potential 
sliding surfaces.  However in the shovel shear and Rutschblock tests only the top 
15 cm above #9 seemed to slide easily.  There is a strong temperature gradient 
in layer 7 which could lead to weakness, but that hasn't happened yet. The depth 
hoar, present from early in the year, continues to represent a potential 
failure zone but it SEEMED more stable than last month as indicated by the 
shear and rutschblock tests.


The car counts were as follows.


                         ------ 10:45 AM -------
                            with    without
                          trailers  trailers
 Corner Mountain Lot         0         0
 Little Laramie Lot          0         0
 Ski Area to Cattleguard    61         3
 Cattleguard to Turnaround  29         1
 Green Rock Picnic Gnd. Lot  0         3
 Road above Turnaround      30         2


 Total                     120         9