Quick report
I traveled from the silverstar snopark up towards Silverstar, curious about the warming and the rain. Weather: Leaving the car, it read 52F! Broken clouds the entire day, but got a fair bit of sun. It sprinkled rain very sporadically, and never enough to get wet or put on a shell. Had some instances of rain while it was sunny. Temps felt the same all day - still felt like it was in the upper 40's at 7000 ft. Light winds out of the south west all day. Snowpack: Took intermittent obs on the way up. At 3800ft the HS was 70cm, ski pen 9cm, boot pen 38 cm. The snow surface was textured with surface melt and the snow was wet. At 5000ft the HS was 125. At 6000ft HS between 170-210cm. Runnels were present in the snow between 6000ft to where I traveled at 7200ft. Snow in the runnels was very wet/slush. Other than wet loose coming out of the cliffs, I didn't experience any signs of instability underfoot. I think with the additional warming/precip, wet loose from ski turns and wet slabs should be on our minds soon. Snow quality: While touring up, I thought the skiing I'd be doing would be more like mashed potatos...but no. It skied more like schmoo, trending towards guanch. Turning was extremely challenging. It was the type of skiing where you could point your skis straight downhill, not turn, and still lose speed.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1
- Count
- 2
- Aspect
- E
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 5400 ft
Saw many natural D1's as rock bands warmed. Snow, ice, and rock shed and was active the entire time I was out. All avalanches were quite small and did not entrain deeper layers.