Quick report
It had been a while since we'd visited the West Central zone, and I wanted to search for any persistent weak layers, previous natural avalanches, and see how reactive layers were in the area.
I found rounding facets above a stout crust that had rather unremarkable test results, and I didn't see any natural avalanches or experience any cracking, whumphing, or small avalanches on test slopes. Despite the encouraging results, I still didn't feel ready to jump out onto large, steep, unsupported slopes.
During my outing, a dense cloud descended, resulting in freezing rain/mist and a zipper crust on all aspects/elevations up to over 5000ft, my max elevation.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 30
- Cloud Cover
- obscured
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
This was a funky weather kind of day. Starting out, there were high clouds, but they quickly dropped to about 4000ft by 1000. Around that time, a very light freezing rain, or mist, began falling, affecting all surfaces up to higher than my max elevation, at over 5000ft. There was about a foot of snow that fell Sunday night
Snowpack
Snow patches began at about 2500ft, and I put skis on at 3200ft. At 3500ft, there was 6 inches of snow. By 4000ft on flat surfaces, there was about a foot of old, crusty snow, with almost a foot of newer snow on top.
My skins iced up from when mist first began moistening snow surfaces at about 4200ft and up. Other than the moist surface which subsequently became a zipper crust, the new snow was nice, low density snow. On north-facing aspects, there was only a thin zipper crust, but on south-facing slopes and at lower elevations, there was a few cm of moist snow beneath the crust. Below about 4000ft, snow was mostly moist to the ground.
With recent snowfall, there's now about 6 inches of snow even in areas of tight tree canopy, unlike similar terrain, where it was bare ground a couple weeks ago. You could say skiing was successful on this "dust on ground", and only slightly treacherous. At times, there was plenty of sidestepping.
I dug a few pits on different aspects above 5000ft, close to a ridgeline, and I found rounding facets near a thin crust complex above a solid crust, about a foot beneath the surface. Non-propagating extended column tests resulted on these layers. Although this was enough to make note of, nothing popped out or appeared very alarming. I skied a few steep test slopes, and there was no cracking, whumphing or small avalanches. That being said, it felt like that moist surface layer was putting more of a damper on any underlying layers and weaknesses.
I also dug in a sheltered meadow just below 5000ft, and I didn't find the thin crust layers or any faceting snow- just rounds and decomposing forms down to the sold crust. No test results of any significance were noted in that pit.