Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
Sadly, although not surprisingly, this area lacks a lot of snow coverage and surfaces can still be quite challenging where there is snow. A few inches of recent snow has improved travel somewhat, but many areas still require cautious movement over slick crusts and ice, or walking to maneuver over rocks and dry ground. Within the snowpack, there are impressive combinations of crusts and facets although there is a lot of variability to specific layering. While some areas have very thin crusts, others have thicker, supportable crusts near the surface. This may make pinning down a potential persistant slab problem challenging when more snow falls on top.
I was able to initiate very stubborn cracking in unsupported, wind affected snow.Weather
- Air Temp
- 34
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Recent Snowfall
- 10
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
The day started out quite chilly, but quickly warmed with rising freezing levels. The sky, by and large, was overcast but the sun poked through a couple of times for a brief minute or two. Temperatures hovered just above freezing. The wind was calm in the trees, and light with moderate gusts at ridgeline, from the east.
Snowpack
I dug a pit on an E aspect at 6400'. The depth of this pit was 71cm (28in). I found 10cm (4in) of recent snow overlaying a snowpack that was all facet/crust combos to the ground. The recent snow wasn't very well bonded to the old snow. I performed a compression test and got an easy resistant result at the new/old interface (CT1PC down 10cm). I then got a moderate break within faceted snow lower down (CT12BRK down 20cm). I performed extended column tests and got an easy, non propagating result at the new/old interface (ECTN2 down 10cm) and a hard non propagating result lower down in the same layer of facets (ECTN23 down 22cm).
I dug another pit on a N aspect at 6700'. The depth of this pit was 104cm (41in). I found the same amount of recent snow that was better bonded to old snow in this location, later in the day. The previous surface crust at this location was significantly thicker and harder. I found crust/facet combos below, however the faceted layers were also less faceted than the previous snowpit. The structure at this pit, overall, was better. I perfromed a compression test and got no result (CTN).
The recent snow that has fallen in the area was rapidly influenced by warming throughout the day and became thick and sticky by the end of the day. At upper elevations, most south facing, as well as exposed, windward slopes lacked snow coverage.