Mt. Hood: South Side

The snowpack is heavily wind-affected on the south side of Mt Hood. There are lots of scoured, rimed surfaces on Triangle Moraine and thick, stubborn trending unreactive wind-drifted areas along east-facing terrain features. Overall, it seems like snowpack stability has improved significantly in the last 24 hours with the fair weather. 

The snowpack on the south side of Hood is very wind affected. I found everything from smooth, wind drifts that range from 2-3 ft to scoured, rimed surfaces.

From the parking lot at 5600 ft, snow surfaces felt stiff and textured. For about 1000 ft, the snowpack remains thin and scoured, with plenty of shallowly buried hazards lurk. Above Silcox, the snowpack started feeling thicker, smoother, and more connected.

I dug a profile on a wind-loaded SE aspect at 6100 ft. In this location, the HS ranged from 80-110 cm deep. The surface was 1F hard sitting over a softer layer of 4F+. Snowpack tests easily highlighted this strong over weaker layering. However, I really was more focused on the bond to the thin 12/24 crust, which in this location sat roughly 45 cm below the surface. I did find some slightly weaker (4F) DF's above and below this crust. Compression tests produced sudden planar results in the moderate range on this softer snow directly above the crust, but failed to propagate through the whole length of the ECT (ECTN11). Below this interface, I found a strong snowpack and good bond to the 12/18.

As I climbed above 7000 ft, wind-drifted surfaces became even denser in the P-hardness range. These were generally supportable to my weight and didn't provide much info. Despite the strong winds, ski quality remains decent at upper elevations.