Quick report
- Aspect
- Northeast
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 3231 m
- Slope Angle
- 15°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>1 - In isolated leeward areas there may be wind loading going on. 2 - An epic setup for a poor *future* snowpack structure with 40 cm of faceted snow in sheltered terrain.</p>
Skiing conditions are poor with sheltered areas harboring a thin layer (40cm) of fun sugary snow barely covering up all rocks and logs. On all other areas it's wind hammered sastrugi, punchy wind and sun crust, and bare ground.
The sheltered areas harboring that soft sugary faceted snow are something to look out for when the snow falls again as it is a bad foundation. These areas are primarily east/north/west facing.
Above photo shows some of the 1-2 mm faceted grains from my snowpit.
Oof. Things are in a sad state at the moment. The entirety of my snowpit is sugary facets!!
A west facing hellscape.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>There may be isolated pockets of wind drifted snow. My guess is these are most likely on southeast facing slopes.</p>
Surface conditions run the gamut from sugary facets in sheltered north facing areas to wind crust to melt-freeze crust with lots of bare ground in places. The primary snow surface was wind crust/wind affected with a breakable crust of varying densities and strengths (ie sometimes punchy and sometimes able to support body weight).