Quick report
- Collapsing
- isolated
With new snow falling, APUs snow science 1 class got out for a field day. We intended to dig pits and gain information on new layers forming. Going up the common skin track there was only a trace of snow until around 12pm. It started snowing harder and the winds picked up then. Snow transport was only observed at higher elevations. We saw flagging for the brief moment the visibility was high, snow was being blown over the ridge of cornbiscuit. Got one collapse on a steeper slope in the alders and that was it. We dug a quick pit by that collapse then headed up to 1800 for a full pit(attached) and then skied back down from there. Good powder. Just before we dug our first pit-not documented on this observation- we got a whumpf on a steep hill. Nothing slid but the collapse led to some cracks appearing. We dug a quick pit adjacent to the collapse. This was at 1400 ft and we got CT1 sudden collapse(DF layer), and ECTP2(Surface Facets). Same snowpack as the snowpilot attached.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 12
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- light
- Rain Elevation
- 0
- Recent Snowfall
- 15
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Sky was overcast all day even becoming obscured at some points. Temps were 12F at the start of the day (10:00), 14 at the pit(12:30), and around 20 when we got back to the parking lot(2:30). A trace of snow and calm wind all day until 12:30, then it was S1 and light+ winds at higher elevations.
Snowpack
We found about 15cm of new snow on top of 10 cm of partly decomposed fragments. Just under that there were larger sugary facets-10cm of 2-4mm. The next 10cm was a knife hard ice layer. Then there was a very thin layer of crust 1f hardness but variable, it seemed to be a layer of meltfreeze thats possibly been faceted. Under that, until 30cm it was knife hard meltfreeze.