Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
I went to the same area a week ago and was astonished at the changes. There has been a significant amount of melt-out in this area; the road, for example, had 3-4 patches of dirt. There are a great many brown faces on the south sides and many exposed bushes, characteristic of this area. Above about 8500 feet, N/NE aspects in the trees are still holding faceted snow about 4 cm in depth. On south aspects, I found many different types of surface snow including melt freeze grains and wet snow below 8000 ft; above 8000 ft, ice, hard snow, breakable crust, and facets on one protected SE slope. Following one of the ridges south of the road down from Crater Lake, I ran into thick clusters of bushes at about 8200 ft, which have been largely covered in the previous two seasons. After a little jungle skiing, I found the road and descended the last 600 vertical feet.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 46
- Cloud Cover
- scattered
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Snow Avail For Transport
- none
Warm start but winds began to pick up from SW.
Snowpack
The surface snow is highly variable depending on aspect and elevation. On protected N/NE aspects above 8500 ft, there is still consistently faceted snow on top of a 16 cm crust with resistant facets underneath. In open areas on these aspects, the snow is very hard. On south faces, I found a variety of surface snow including melt freeze grains, ice, breakable crust, and even facets.