Quick report
The day was warm, especially as we gained elevation. Higher north-facing areas still had snow in trees, but it was dripping and tree-bombing in the afternoon. Snow surfaces varied between moist, crusty, and dry powder. Snow was well settled, and I didn't find instabilities aside from impending small amounts of wet loose activity on sunny slopes. These were predominantly rollerballs from the day prior, but a few more were coming down today. There was no wind slab development anywhere I traveled. Overall, a pleasant day out with pockets of nice, settled snow. We were able to start/end on skis at 2000ft, surprisingly.
A few new rollerballs, today, but mainly from yesterday, predominantly on south-facing slopes.Weather
- Air Temp
- 39
- Cloud Cover
- clear
- Wind Loading
- none
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Warmer temperatures are higher than down low. Warm and drippy (tree bombs) in sun, shady areas especially in large open patches stayed cool.
Snowpack
Snow surfaces varied greatly. Areas beneath trees were highly textured with tree-bomb shrapnel, mostly moist, whereas tree-bombed spots closer to open meadows were crusty. South-facing slopes had moist snow in the top 10-20cm.
Cold, dry, low-density snow was present on some flat, shady surfaces. Most of these areas also harbored surface hoar. I was expecting to find this to be the case in the large open north-facing meadow where I dug at 4600ft. Instead, the surface had a subtle melt-freeze crust and very small surface hoar growths. There was also a handful of day-old rollerballs from tree bombs above the meadow.
In the pit I dug at 4600ft, I found right-side-up decomposing forms (below the surface) all the way down to the 12/24 crust 42cm deep. Snow was well-bonded to that layer. I didn't get results in tests.