Mt. Emmons

The April Fool's storm is making a fool of anyone who thought we would have a light and fluffy powder day today. We found 55cm of heavy and wet new snow, with an upside-down layering. Wet loose avalanches failing on the storm interface were easily triggered with ski cuts below treeline on NE-N facing slopes we traveled on this afternoon. We avoided traveling in start zones near treeline due to some concerns for deeper wet slab type failures on wet grains below the storm interface, with a couple collapses and ECTP results.

The top half of the storm snow was upside-down and produced consistent minor collapses while breaking trail, about a foot deep. We observed a couple of larger collapses where the storm interface (a melt-freeze crust) collapsed into wet snow below it, about 2 feet deep.

Coverage was thin below ~10,000 ft, where 8-10" of new snow was on bare ground or a thin snowpack comprised of mostly large, wet grains. As we gained elevation, we observed 20-25" of new snow that had 10" of more dense, moist snow on top of snow from earlier in the storm that was less dense. The storm interface in BTL elevations below ~10,500 ft was a thin, melt-freeze crust over moist-to-wet grains to the ground. Near 11,300 ft, we observed a refrozen interface that was ~20cm thick.