Mammoth Lakes Basin/Sherwin Ridge

We poked around on both solar and polar aspects near and below treeline to look for wet snow instability and how deeply the snowpack was getting wet.

• We saw small natural, Wet Loose avalanches and rollerballs on almost every aspect. We triggered large rollerballs and very small wet sluffs on east-facing test slopes in the late morning and north-facing test slopes later in the afternoon.
• The top few inches of the snowpack were wet everywhere we dug. Below that, the snow was moist down 12-18 inches to a hard melt-freeze crust buried in the snow. Near treeline on a south aspect, the upper snowpack was completely saturated and slushy. See snowpack photos for more details.
• There are large cornices looming over alpine slopes, baking in the hot spring sun.

We dug down until we found dry snow on north and south-facing slopes below treeline, and then again near treeline. See photos for details.