Burgundy Peak

A warm and sunny day was the perfect recipe for wet loose avalanches today of which I saw numerous. By early afternoon, the top 5-6" of the snowpack was wet on southerly aspects but remained cool and dry on northerly aspects. I did not find any instability in the problematic facet/crust combo now buried fairly deep within the snowpack.

I observed numerous wet loose avalanches in nearly every steep, south facing chute I could see.

By the time I entered the field at 1200, the snow on south aspects was well on the way to being warm and wet. There were plenty of signs of wet snow; rollerballs, large clumps of snow falling off trees, and numerous natural wet loose avalanches. The snow remained cool and dry on northerly aspects. I found 4-6mm surface hoar on the surface of the snow on all aspects.

I dug a pit on a southeast aspect at 7900'. The depth of this pit was 61" (156cm). The top 5" (13cm) of the snow was wet and pooling on a melt freeze crust that was also wet. The snow continued to be moist down to 33" (86cm) meaning the top 70cm of the snow was wet-moist. I found another melt freeze crust 16" (41cm) down in the middle of rounded grains. Below this was a combo of crust and rounding facets above and below it. These layers were dry. There were dry basal facets at the ground. The snowpit in its entirety was four finger (4F) hard or harder except for the top and bottom 10cm. I performed an extended column test and got non-propagating results on the top two melt freeze crusts (ECTN11 and ECTN25).

I dug another pit on a northwest aspect at 7800'. The depth of this pit was 86" (218cm). I found a well consolidated slab on top of a facet/crust/facet combo 32" (81cm) down. Unfortunately I ran out of time to perform any snowpit tests in this pit.