Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Cracking
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>The strong east winds were the main red flag today and the hazard was on the south side of the compass with lots of blowing and drifting snow along the exposed ridge lines. </p>
Getting a little more encouraged with how the snow pack is evolving, the faceted snow near the ground appears to be less weak and unconsolidated and could not get a crack to propagate across a column of snow.
A nice 10" roughly in Whitney that has accumulated from the last few days, filling in some tracks and making for some decent spring riding.
Not a great photo, but normally the wind blows from left to right( south to north ) along the Double Hill Ridge Line, but today it was from the east creating unusual conditions.
Riders were finding new snow and good riding conditions today.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>The moderate to strong east winds were creating shallow, but sensitive soft wind drifted snow on the more exposed ridges. The drifted snow would easily crack ahead of skis and sleds, these were about 12-16" deep. It is unusual to have the east winds moving snow onto the south facing aspects and I had to keep reminding myself where the hazard was today. </p> <p>Maybe not quite ready to forget about the persistent weak snow that has been down near the ground. Where I dug today it might be looking a little better where the snow pack is deeper, but would not fully trust it in thinner places and areas at and above treeline.</p>
To me it looked like around 10-12" has accumulated since the Wednesday storm out in the Whitney area. Quite nice snow conditions, some of the old tracks have filled in and riders today were finding good supportable conditions. Good to see winter is still around for the time being.