Quick report
Snow was falling steadily during my whole tour with generally low visibility. I found a seemingly right-side-up snowpack (except for the January facets) yet got noteworthy results during stability tests. I observed snow being transported by the NE wind up on the ridgeline but only during intermittent gusts, otherwise the wind was generally light and variable. Warm temperatures and warmer snow had me feeling like the upper snowpack was about to receive a test, and I steered clear of steeper terrain.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 28
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- light
- Recent Snowfall
- 5
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
Snow accumulation was consistently at about 1cm/hr during my time up there(1200-1500). Wind was variable but gusting out of the NE at about 15mph. Temp @ 8000ft at 1400 was 28f.
Snowpack
Digging up off of Lee's today at about 8000ft on a NE aspect I found a snowpack that felt sneakily scary. During my hand hardness observations the upper snowpack felt right side up, but upon conducting stability tests I had a layer about 50cm down consistently collapsing. There were no persistent grains or an obvious bed surface here but a noticeable density change. It seemed like the remnants of a recent storm or wind slab that had yet to bond well to the underlying layer. It broke but did not propagate during my ECT. I did not get any results on the deeper January facets which I found buried @ about 80cms, though I did not conduct a PST. I did not dig much below 100 cms.