Quick report
- Cracking
- specific
I slogged through trap-door snow and poor visibility to get a baseline sense of the snowpack and look at storm instabilities in the Bishop Creek drainage.
- I got long, shooting cracks breaking in lower-density snow under a cohesive slab at the surface.
- I did not find any persistent grains in my snow pits. The snowpack is upside-down and still thin, especially below 9000 ft.
- Snowfall rates and blowing snow increased throughout the day.
Weather
- Air Temp
- Near Freezing. Decreasing throughout day.
- Cloud Cover
- obscured
- Wind Loading
- moderate
- Rain Elevation
- 7500
- Recent Snowfall
- 2
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
Increasing snowfall and wind throughout the day. Temps hovered around freezing and began to fall in the afternoon.
Snowpack
The snowpack still has sage and rocks poking through below about 9000 ft. Snow depth ranged from 20-50 cm. Around 9400 ft: windward aspects had less than 80 cm, while leeward aspects had 100-135 cm. I did not find persistent weak layers anywhere. My snowpack test propagated at the same interface that I got shooting cracks - under a cohesive wind slab in the softer recent snow.