Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Poked at a few thin wind slabs up high, but they didn't want to move. Sluffing wasn't much of an issue where we were due to wind effect. Pretty quiet.</p>
Existing snowpack is pretty variable in the Mill B back bowls due to the rocky terrain. Sort of two types of areas, either deep and very strong (no shears in a pit around 10,400, N facing) or very weak with no slab on top (some thin rocky areas were just 3 feet of sugar). Either way the result is the same, stable for now.
As far as the snow surface, southerly facing slopes are crusted and the uppermost elevations are pretty wind effected with some areas of soft wind buffed snow and other areas of very hard, but thin wind board. Everything else has weak faceted snow to some extent. Surface hoar was mostly limited to drainage bottoms, but plenty of near surface faceting elsewhere. I did find one area near 10,400' N facing where there was perfectly preserved surface hoar underneath a very thin windslab. Also, plenty of areas with thin wind crusts with faceting going on underneath. Unfortunately, in these areas the weak snow is already preserved intact and won't be destroyed by pre-frontal winds. Will also support more of a slab before failing. Hope we don't get rime tomorrow, which would do the same.