Weather
- Air Temp
- -6.5
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
It was a relatively wintery day with cold temperatures and fresh snow. Throughout most of the terrain the wind was calm or light, but near the peak of "Paulina 2" it was moderate from the southeast.
Snowpack
I saw only very small Dry Loose sluffs from the steepest terrain.
I observed previous wind transport from the west in the usual spots as well as recent cornice growth. I kicked a couple of medium chunks of cornice and wasn't able to trigger any avalanches or observe any propogation on the lee slopes beneath.
At 7,430 ft NNW I observed 230 cm of snow. At this spot there was 21 cm of softer snow above last weeks melt-freeze crust (at lower elevations I observed 15 cm. over the crust). I didn't find any persistent weak layers near this crust. There is also a fair bit of graupel mixed in with last week's snow, but it didn't seem to contstitute a significant layer. I did find poorly preserved buried surface hoar down 35 cm. but it was unreactive in stability tests. My take on this surface hoar, as well as the deeper facets that Elliott found is: These layers are very isolated in the terrain, and avalanches are unlikely to occurr on them. That being said, I wouldn't want to be surprised by something that propogates larger or fails much deeper than I'd otherwise expect. This uncertainty has definately affected my terrain choice and I've been a bit more conservative than I would otherwise be.