Quick report
Ski quality was, actually, pretty okay. A dense <1" of new down low stacked up to 1-2" above 8000' and provided some body over the crust. The melt-freeze crust that formed last night is significantly softer (1F hard) from 7-7.5k' and is mostly ski supportable. Above 8000', this was a harder freeze and it's a full 4cm thick ice crust. Although it's too shallow to be a slab, we also did not observe any dry loose running on steep (high 30 deg) convexities that we skied. This suggests that warm temps have helped this new snow bond to the crust.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 31
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- none
- Recent Snowfall
- 4
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Winds were Calm to Light but sky cover changed from Overcast to 1 hour of Scattered and a burst of solar energy and then back to Overcast. A brief flurry of graupel and then a snow shower, but only a trace accumulation.
Snowpack
We dug at 8350' NE and found moist snow all the way down to a crust 70cm down, but unlike the Blues on Weds, we didn't see any water/slush pooling above crusts. This indicates that the melt water has drained/absorbed well on this upper northerly aspect. A non-existant temperature gradient (0deg C) through the top 90cm also confirmed that all these layers were moist and warm.