Quick report
Fresh wind drifts on N and E aspects.
Tuesday night's "storm" gave us an inch of snow, and a bunch of rime as seen here.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>In my travels Wednesday I noticed fresh wind drifts on North and East Facing slopes at mid and upper elevation. With only an inch of snow reported on Tuesday night I was kind of surprised by this. Check out the photos below and you'll see the fresh drifts. These faces are definitely looking more pillowy and rounded than they were when I was out skiing Monday. Also today we avoided an obviously cross loaded gully on a SE aspect that had been loaded by previous winds from the west and south west. The weather has been nice and things are relatively stable, so people might be poking around the high peaks and maybe getting into North and East faces up there. Be on the lookout for fresh drifts on these slopes. </p> <p>I noticed roller balls coming off mid and low elevation west facing slopes while skiing out of Gold Basin late Wednesday afternoon. If you happened to find yourself on W or S late in the day today I'm sure you skied through some slop. Loose wet activity was definitely a concern today on sun exposed slopes, mainly West through South. Today on upper elevation slopes facing SE, the snow did not become wet until about 10,700 and below. Looks like we should get a refreeze tonight and clouds tomorrow, so wet activity should be less of a concern. </p>
There was a mini corn cycle over yesterday and today, but the window was short and you had to catch it just right. Below 11,000 feet was good skiing yesterday (Wed), but I got reports that today (Thur) South and West aspects were total slop below about 11,300. Temperatures sky rocketed and it's all about working the aspects and elevations. Yesterday I was also finding good snow on upper elevation NW facing slopes. With today's warm temps you needed to be up very high to find decent corn. We found good corn skiing on SE aspects above 11,000 ft.