Surprise Weather Station

There is very little snow at lower elevations in the park. A hard freeze overnight kept travel straightforward with a supportable crust. The biggest hazard remains dodging sagebrush and rocks at low elevations. In general, there is 1-2 feet of snow up to 8000', 2-3 feet up to 9000', and up to 3-5 feet at 9500'. Shady aspects hold more, and some sunny aspects hold considerably less. The crust extended up to 9500'. Steeper, sunny slopes were softening by mid-morning; no surprise, they were also where the best turns were found.  It didn't quite feel like spring corn, but it sure didn't feel like December.

We dug a pit at 9500' on a northeast aspect. The snow height was 4.9 feet (150cm) at this location. The snow surface was a 3-inch temperature/wind crust, and a majority of the snowpack (top 3 feet) was a well-consolidated slab (see pit) with rounding throughout. A thin decomposing crust 1.5 feet (45cm) above the ground separates old November snow from more recent snow. Below this crust, there are mostly rounds with some faceting (1-2mm), and there is moisture throughout the bottom 1.5' to the ground. We did an extended column test and got no results (ECTX), even with the column isolated into the old November snowpack. This test was conducted after I cleared the surface crust, which broke on isolation.

While nothing was jumping out at us in the snowpack, current surfaces and near-surface conditions could be a concern with the incoming storm. From about 8000' to 8500' where we travelled, the crust is thin and quite slick and could be a slippery bed surface for new snow. From 9000' to 9500', the crust was up to 3 inches thick and had some near-surface faceting just below it. I could see both of these crust conditions being a concern if the snowpack receives a significant load later this week and into the weekend.