Summer Lion Head Trail

This morning, two forecasters hiked up the Summer Lion Head Trail to see if wind slabs had formed in the slide path that crosses the trail near treeline. We dug down to the 1/10 melt freeze crust in east-facing terrain at approximately 4300ft. We found a poor, hard over soft structured slab 65cm deep on top of the crust and had propagating results in two snowpack tests. Although the dense upper layer in the slab may have been supportive to a skier, boot penetration was up to 30cm. The weak layer under the slab in this location was likely too deep to effect on skis, but triggering a consequential avalanche from a thinner spot in the snowpack was not out of the question.

We elected to not cross the slide path and returned to Hermit Lake before touring into the lower snowfields under Dutchess. In this sheltered spot, the upper snowpack was very different and not of concern. We found a few inches of mainly unconsolidated snow on top of the ice crust.

On the Summer Lion Head Trail, the slab on top of the latest melt-freeze crust was 65cm deep. The top 50cm of the slab was 1F+ Hard snow over softer, 15cm of 4F-. The MF crust itself was about 1cm thick and knife hard. Our two snowpack tests results were an ECTP20 and PST 32/End (See videos!)