Quick report
Today's goal was to find inspiration amidst challenging conditions and flat light. I'm not sure if we succeeded, but a beautiful sunrise and sunset seemed to punctuate our two+ hour tour through flat light, cloudy mist, and a faceted rock garden. But don't let my cloudy demeanor dissuade you, good conditions can still be found at the pass. We picked up a well-received inch of snow overnight and snow showers continued through our tour today, although at times it was a little damp. We wanted to check out the snowpack in some of the higher and rockier regions of the forecast area, and we found just what we expected: a thin, faceted snowpack and an abundance of early-season hazards. The snowpack at Hatcher Pass is sitting close to 40% of average for this time of year which means things are still feeling like November, and the snow that is on the ground is a mix of facets, crusts, and old wind slabs. In places, these can create challenging, punchy skiing and riding. Look for good turns on lower angled sheltered slopes leeward to the predominant SE winds, but even then be prepared to encounter variable conditions. If you push into steep, high elevation terrain, be ready to encounter small shallow Wind Slabs and isolated Persistent Slabs. Overall hazard remains low, but in the isolated and steep terrain where unstable snow does exist, even a small avalanche could result in a traumatic ride.
Outside of our snowpit test results, no instabilities were observed. No cracking, collapsing or recent avalanches were observed today.Weather
- Air Temp
- 20
- Cloud Cover
- obscured
- Wind Loading
- none
- Recent Snowfall
- 2.5
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
We picked up maybe an inch of new snow overnight and snow showers continued throughout the day, although not accumulating much if any new snow. The cloud deck dropped a few times throughout our tour, lowering visibility, increasing RH, and generally making it feel like misty, with a light drizzle / rime feel to the precipitation. Although no crust was apparent on the snow surface, outerwear became wet and soggy. Temps were 20 deg F at 4500' and 24 deg F at 3550' midday. Winds were calm to light throughout our tour.
Snowpack
The snowpack in Pinnacle Valley is thin and faceted. We toured up through the aptly named Rock Garden and encountered, you guessed, it: mostly rocks. On the W/SW aspect at 4000 ft where we dug, we found a shallow snowpack that can be summed up as the top 1/2 being new or relatively recent (12/14-15) decomposing snow that formed a soft, barely cohesive slab, and the bottom 1/2 being comprised of mostly loose, well-preserved facets. Although we received propagation in our test results with the Extended Column Test as a result of the poor structure in this location, the slab/weak layer combo we found varies considerably and only exists in isolated locations.