Stahl Peak

We traveled to the Northern Whitefish today, ascending Stahl Peak, where we reached the cold and windy summit under scattered clouds in the early afternoon. Lingering concerns about persistant slabs kept us off steep and shaded start zones without a supportable surface crust.

Here are our takeaways:

Surface conditions vary markedly, depending on aspect, slope angle, and elevation.
- Steep, open slopes that face the sun had a 2”-thick, stout, and supportable crust all the way up to the summit at 7,435’. These slopes did not soften and were only marginally edgeable on the descent.
  - A slip on steep and sustained solar pitches at the upper elevations could result in a long sliding fall.
Lower-angle, treed solar slopes had a unsupportable, breakable crust, and a fairly treacherous one at that.
Near 6,000’, low-angle shaded slopes held either a thin, unsupportable zipper crust, or no crust at all. Steep and shaded slopes near the summit held entirely soft surface snow.
Below the crust on slopes that have one—and starting at the surface on slopes that don’t—the upper 12-18" of the snowpack is a pile of sand (small-grained facets). All of the snow that has fallen since 1/2 is weak, sugary, and cohesionless. This was the case everywhere we traveled at the mid- and upper elevations, whether shaded or solar, treed or open.
As our travels on open slopes were mostly sun and wind-exposed, we didn’t observe much in the way of surface hoar.
We didn't observe any crowns on nearby upper-elevation slopes, though scattered low clouds and challenging light angles made it hard for us to get a good view at much of the bigger terrain sorrounding Stahl.

Stahl Peak

Quick report

Weather

Snowpack