Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>There was obvious drifting along the ridgelines and sub ridges, and the skin track was filling in between laps, but the drifts themselves seemed generally shallow where we traveled. We did not observe any cracking or collapsing. A small cornice break entrained some of the new snow, but it did not step down or show much structure.</p>
The ski conditions greatly improved, yay.
Overall, the key takeaways today were how the new snow was behaving at the old snow interface and the wind drifting. On both the solars and the polars, the new snow was not bonding very well to the old snow surface. On the solars, there was a generally supportable crust, which was easily sluffing the new snow off during skinning and while skiing. Overall, the new snow was low-density and did not have much body, but as the storm, PI, and winds pick up and the low-density snow transitions into something a bit more cohesive, I would expect shallow soft slabs to become sensitive on the solars.
On the polars, the new snow was also not bonding very well to the old snow surface, with sluffing that was entraining snow, but it was generally slow-moving and low-density. In one steeper section of Hideaway Park, the sluffing snow behaved a bit more like a slab, entraining 4–8" of cohesive snow, but it remained slow moving and never stepped down deeper to any of the crusts from the last rain event.
Where we traveled was generally protected from much wind drifting, but it was obvious along ridgelines and sub ridges. I would expect sensitive wind drifts along ridgelines and in catch features, particularly on east-facing aspects.
We dug down to look at the structure and crust interfaces. We were unable to get propagation at or around any of the recent crust interfaces, but the snow structure is a bit weaker between the two crust interfaces about 50–60 cm below the new snow surface. Currently, there is a 1F slab sitting on top of the rain crust, which sits on top of 4F snow from mid February.
NE Aspect - 9900' - New snow sitting atop the 1F slab sitting on top of the rain crust with 4F snow beneath - no results
Snowpack
Between 3–9" of new, generally low density snow. In the morning there was widespread rime on the trees and about 3–4" of new snow on top of the previous snow surface. On solar aspects that sat on a really slick, supportable crust, which made for very challenging (kind of horrible…) skinning. Once on the ridgeline and in catch features, that transitioned to about 4–6" of new snow with a bit of texture from drifting. We did not see any obvious signs of instability in the shallow drifts. No cracking or collapsing, just a bit of texture and signs of skin tracks filling in and drifting over.
Dropping into more north-facing terrain, the new snow was sitting on top of the last storm with a much less noticeable bottom, making for soft, enjoyable turns. The new snow was not bonding particularly well to the old surface, with easy sluffing that entrained quite a bit of snow in steeper terrain, though it was generally moving slowly.
On the way out, the solar aspects now had 6–9" of new low-density snow sitting on top of the same supportable crust and starting to cover rocks and trees. It was easy to push the new snow around, but the bottom was still very obvious.
Riming on the trees going up the Emma's
Initial new snow depth - 9A - South Aspect - 9200'
Much less of a distinguishable difference in new snow vs old snow - 130PM - NW Aspect - 9480'