Observation: Cardiff Fork

Went into Cardiff for searching for some good snow. Variable conditions is the only way to put it, we encountered soft facets, wind loaded, wind board, melt freeze crust, sun crust, and wind stripped snow that could vary withing feet of each other. The best snow was in wind and sun sheltered snow and wind buffed sun sheltered areas.

Winds where strong and cold in the morning at ridgelines. They mellowed through out the day but was still noticable on the ridge lines in the late afternoon. We noted very little snow being transported, many of the high peaks and the ridgelines seemed scoured and wind boarded.

We dug pits on a N slope at 9,400ft. We noticed 2 significant crusts, one just below there surface and one ~25cm down. Both where very hard. Between these cursts was very faceted loose snow, it had almost very little resistance. In this layer above the lower crust McKinley noted a CT3 at 42cm Q2. Directly below this crust there was minor faceting but the deeper in the snowpack we went the better the snow looked. It was not faceted and fairly rounded getting harder towards the base. We saw this as our biggest layer of concern going forward.

South facing slopes had a layer of surface hoar that covered past tracks, it never warmed up and remained hard all day.

Below is a video of the faceted snow in between crusts as well as my pit, and faceted crystals from between the crusts.