Quick report
Snow coverage is going fast in this part of the zone! Steep solar aspects are nearly bare, and even N facing areas aren't holding consistent coverage until ~4700'. Above 5000', there is about 2-4 inches of recent snow sitting on a ski-supportable crust, which made for acceptable dust-on-crust skiing. Underneath this initial crust, there was another even stouter crust about 6in (15cm) below the surface. In areas which had seen more sun, the new snow had a breakable crust on top of it. On the bench at 5600' there was evidence of previous wind - the crust was lightly scoured and wind textured, but I did not find any areas where enough snow had drifted in to create avalanche hazard. Although the sun came out quite a bit throughout the day, the light winds kept surfaces from moistening too much - no recent rollerballs or signs recent wet avalanche activity where I traveled.
Weather
- Air Temp
- High 30s
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Recent Snowfall
- 2-4cm
When I entered the field around 12:30pm I experienced sunshine, scattered cumulus clouds, and light winds. It was a bit chillier than I expected, maybe in the high 30s. Around 3PM more clouds rolled in, accompanied by some moderate gusts of wind, and a few ~10min periods of heavy graupeling.
Snowpack
I dug a pit on a N aspect at 5300.' I found that water seems to have made its way through the entirety of the snowpack, and despite many old crusts and layers of moist facets, the layers all seemed relatively well bonded to each other, and all holding similar amounts of moisture which seemed to be giving the entire structure strength.