Quick report
Wanted to look at the snowpack in Hillman's Highway after reading reports of an upside down composition to the new snow. Overall found the snow in Hillmans to be very stable, right side up, and inline with the forecast. The majority of the surface snow was 1F to 1F+ with isolated pockets of P hardness and an exposed melt freeze crust. Due to good visibility this was an easily avoided hazard.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 30
- Cloud Cover
- scattered
- Wind Loading
- none
- Rain Elevation
- Not Observed
- Recent Snowfall
- none
- Snow Avail For Transport
- none
Warm temperatures, low west wind speeds, and great visibility made for very pleasant travel in the terrain today
Snowpack
Wanted to look at the snowpack in Hillman's Highway after reading reports of an upside down composition to the new snow. Overall found the snow in Hillmans to be very stable. The majority of the surface snow was 1F+ in hand hardness with isolated pockets where the hardness was P or scoured to the melt freeze crust. At this point found the snowpack to be right side up, stable, and inline with the forecast. In some places there was a minor density difference, such as 1F+ on top of 1F snow that was on the old melt freeze crust. This was a minor difference and likely a thin wind skin. Observed no cracking or instabilities. Boot penetration typically ranged 11-14 cm in depth.
The snow depths of the wind drifted snow was variable, but at ~3920 ft depths were 6 inches and at ~4600 ft found depths to be more like 1.5 ft, found isolated pockets where the snow was deeper, but the previous depths were what we consistently found.
There was wind effected snow that had the appearance of sastrugi, but was actually found to be soft and this was likely due to solar warming.
On Hillman’s in the lookers left there was a glaze ice coating on places that had a slight southern tilt. Observed increasing moisture in the snow surface from warm temperatures and the solar warming. Expect this surface to freeze as temperatures fall and audibly observed after 1500 that those descending Hillman’s Highway encountered a far firmer surface once the surface was shaded.
The entire run was boot supportable and while we used crampons, they were only necessary for very small sections during our time in the terrain. Observed multiple descents across Boot Spur Ridge and saw some grippy snow and sloughing in steeper sections.