Microwave Hill

Well, the snowpack is wet, and we aren't exactly surprised. While a wet snowpack is generally known to be an unstable snowpack, timing is key with wet snow avalanche problems. Other than an old glide avalanche we observed, we did not see any other signs of instability throughout the day. We didn't get our hands on very much terrain, however, so it's hard to make any hard and fast conclusions about snowpack conditions.

We observed what looked to be a glide avalanche. It is impossible to say when exactly it released, but it had to have been sometime this week and likely within the last 48 hours.

Time spent at middle elevations confirmed the snowpack is getting very wet and warm. We did not go to upper elevation terrain, but one can suspect similar conditions. Lower down in the middle elevation band, around 4300 ft on a southerly aspect, we measured 65cm snowpack depths. We dug a pit on a northeast aspect at 4900 ft. The depth of this pit was 229cm (90in). The top 39cm (15in) of snow we believe was, at one point, close to 1 meter deep. The moisture content throughout the entire snowpack was at least somewhat moist. Water has pooled at the 03/12, 03/08, and 02/07 interfaces. The most water had pooled around the 03/12. We checked the temperature of the snowpack and found it to be at 0 degrees all the way through. We performed a small column test and got no result (CTX).

There was no one boot penetration depth. Sometimes you could walk along and only step 20-30cm through. Other times you'd punch down all the way to your waist.