Convict Lake Area

In my continued attempt to look at the snowpack in new places so you don't have to, I took my skis for a walk on an ill-conceived field trip near Convict Lake.

• Limited signs of instability. No avalanches today or from the recent storm.

Localized small wind slabs broke out under me on the sidewall and gut of a gully. Mostly on the east-facing side. Very isolated collapsing of a thin, hard wind board under me on a northwest aspect. In both cases, there were facets underneath. Both in near treeline terrain.

Coverage in this area is very poor, with little snow to travel on below about 9800 ft. North aspects and protected gullies have the most. Sunny slopes are mostly bare ground.

3 flavors of old wind-affected snow today: 

1. Thin P hard wind board under F storm snow from the 25th, and over F facets - localized/isolated cracking/collapsing on northwest near treeline.
2. "True Wind Slabs," 4F slabs over broken precip particles and facets over old K hard crust. East-facing sidewall and gut of a gully in near treeline terrain - short shooting cracks/small slabs breaking out. 
3. Wind redistributed snow: deeper HS and rounded F to F+ hard deposits downwind of tree fences and rolls near treeline on cross-loaded N, NW, W -unreactive, ECTx x 2. Recent snow too low density to form slabs. 

The recent, low-density storm snow is faceting on shady slopes with 2-4 mm surface facets on top.

Most sunny slopes were bare ground or broken up by sage and rocks, so my stomping around in thin moist snow was futile. I got to one SE slope with coverage on the sidewall of a gully that had a surface melt-freeze crust late in the afternoon, so I assume it was wet at some point during the day, but there were no signs of rollers or wet instability. E N and W did not warm and stayed dry.