On Sunday December 19 Patrollers Bob Howell, Joe Pohl, Mike Hotchkiss, and Mike's 
friend Kim skied the lower part of the Potholes trail starting from Green Rock.  
There was relatively fresh snow from Thursday's storm, and weather conditions 
were warm, fair, and slightly windy.  Snow conditions were good once we reached 
the trees above the early open south-facing slopes, although the snow was thin 
on those slopes.  From a lack of tracks and what seemed to be the lack of any 
packed snow along the trail, we may have been the first to use the Potholes 
trail this season.  Because of that it was slow going and we only got to the 
spot where the trail ascends the first esker.

We dug a snowpit at 13T 0397836 4579232 (NAD27), on the side of that first 
esker, at the highest point we reached on the trail.  The site is a slope 
of 33 degrees facing ENE (60 deg.) mostly sheltered by trees.  The snow 
depth was 64 cm, the air temperature was 0C, and we obtained the following 
results.    
NOTE BECAUSE THIS IS A RELATIVELY SHELTERED LOCATION WITHIN THE TREES THIS 
MAY NOT BE VERY TYPICAL OF THE OPEN SLOPES HIGHER IN THE RANGE.

 layer height Temp.  Hardness                    Crystal structure
   #   cm     C
 -----  64 -------------------------------------------------------------------
   7         -6      fist       fresh powder    0.4 mm mostly fresh dendrites
------  57 -------------------------------------------------------------------
   6         -4      3 finger                   0.3 mm slightly rounded
------  43 -------------------------------------------------------------------
   5         -6      slightly harder layer      "     "    "     "
------  41 -------------------------------------------------------------------
   4         -3      3 finger                   "     "    "     "
------  33 -------------------------------------------------------------------
   3         -2      3 finger    depth hoar     2 mm faceted crystals
------  21 -------------------------------------------------------------------
   2         -2      3 finger    depth hoar     "     "    "     "
------  10 -------------------------------------------------------------------
   1          0      2 finger    depth hoar     "     "    "     "
                                 slightly welded
------   0 -------------------------------------------------------------------


In a shovel shear test it took only slight force to produce a failure near the top of
layer 3, i.e. near the top of the depth hoar.  It then took moderate force to produce 
a further shear just above the ground surface.  In summary, there does appear to be 
a considerable depth hoar layer this year (at least at this location), due to the relatively 
low snowfall during November and early December.

The car counts were as follows, at approximately 9:45 AM.

                            with    without
                          trailers  trailers
 Corner Mountain Lot         0         0
 Little Laramie Lot          0         1
 Below Cattleguard           3         0
 Cattleguard to Turnaround  36         1
 Green Rock Picnic Gnd. Lot  0         6
 P. G. to Snowy Range Lodge 11         5

 Total                      50        13