Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
- Collapsing
- widespread
We toured up Johnson Canyon for our AIARE 1 course, avoiding avalanche terrain and looking for signs of instability. Approximately 5" of heavy wet new snow at the trailhead, with 7-8" above 7,000'. The snowpack is still shallow in this area, but there was enough snow to ski. There were signs of rain at lower elevations, and we observed some small loose wet activity on steep terrain in the Euer Valley drainage. At upper elevations, we observed signs of wind transport from W winds. We could feel collapsing of snowpack as we skinned uphill and stopped on a N aspect at 7,000' to dig test pits. HS was 75-100 cms in this area. We observed several weak layers in the snowpack: less dense snow below the heavy new snow, the Jan 2 SH layer (40 cms down), and facets between 2 crusts in the lower 30cms of the snowpack. We had variable results on these layers in snow pit tests.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 36
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Recent Snowfall
- 15-20