Quick report
I found about 2-9 inches of recent storm snow in Bishop Creek, and it snowed another inch on me today.
It's covered up some obstacles that used to be obvious, making your descent below about 10,500 pretty spicy. It's easy to leave P-TEX on rocks and logs out there.
I stomped on several wind-loaded test slopes and got localized cracking underfoot, but couldn't trigger a wind slab. However, on those same slopes I got the top 4-6 inches of recent snow to sluff. Sluffs today seemed to move less far and less readily than yesterday in Mammoth.Weather
- Air Temp
- 19 to 32
- Cloud Cover
- obscured
- Wind Loading
- light
- Rain Elevation
- NA
- Recent Snowfall
- 3
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
There were sunny patches over the Crest when I got to the trailhead, but the peaks became socked in shortly thereafter. Light to moderate snowfall all day. Winds shifted to the north and were light with some moderate gusts. Except for a fleeting moment of sun, the rest of the morning was completely cloudy.
Snowpack
The recent storm snow averaged 5-25 cm in the terrain I saw today, with wind-drifted areas having up to 45 cm. The snow was still mostly unconsolidated, though not as loosey-goosey as during my fieldwork yesterday (4F- today, as opposed to F- yesterday).
Since I couldn't get wind slabs to budge, I performed several snowpack tests in drifts to see if I was missing anything. I did not get propagation or sudden failures. See photo caption.
During a brief sunny window on my way out around 12:30, new snow hit by the sun became moist at the surface. I didn't see any rollerballs, but I could pull fans of moist snow down slope with my pole. This is a good taste of the transition we can expect if the sun comes out and temperatures rise.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1
- Type
- L
- Aspect
- N
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 11300 ft
3 fresh D1 dry loose avalanches coming down from cliffs getting sun on Hurd Peak this morning. North aspect at 11,300 ft. Above treeline.