Quick report
A thin, yet stable snowpack was encountered on east- and southeast-facing features up to 12,300 feet. We found a handful of nice turns on due east terrain above treeline, but largely skipped over rocks and grass on our descent.
The day's goal was weather station maintenance, so we didn't target or investigate problematic snowpack structures on high-elevation north to northeast slopes.
We traveled on slopes without weak snow from October and found no signs of instability.Weather
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- light
- Recent Snowfall
- 1
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Mostly cloudy skies and light snowfall. Light winds with some moderate gusting.
Snowpack
We largely traveled on east slopes (and a few southeast features) between 11,200 and 13,200 feet. Snow depth ranges from a few inches of crust on the sunniest terrain to 20 inches of dry snow on drifted east features. I hastily looked for surface hoar in a few locations on east slopes and didn't find it. There were no signs of instability on this terrain, as it lacked the weak October snow; the sun melted it away.
Collapsible crusts have formed near the surface on some east and southeast terrain. Although not problematic at the moment, a loading event later this week could change that.