Nyack Mountain

Checked out snow surfaces as this warming weather ends and more snowfall *may* arrive. And those surfaces were...variable. A wide variety of melt-freeze crusts and wind packed snow interspersed with soft, and sometimes moist snow. MF crusts softened today but remained supportable at low elevations. Breakable at upper elevations on westerly slopes. That said, we found reliable skiing on most other slopes. Today's light snow bonded readily with these surfaces. Snow on some shady mid and upper elevation slopes showed signs of faceting

In a steep, upper elevation, northerly bowl, we were surprised to find the mid-January crust only a foot below the snow surface. The snowpack in this area was < 150 cm in places. A good reminder that conditions are not uniform and persistent weak layers still exist close enough to the surface for a person to affect. We found no slab above the Jan. structure, and no shears in hand pits. To minimize the chances of stumbling into a trigger point, we used old debris piles for our ascent route in rocky terrain.

Corniuces continue to loom at ridgelines, and new glide cracks are opening on SE slopes. 

Ski crampons useful for low elevation trails. 

Snowpack structure at upper elevations is variable, with loose, unconsolidated facets in shallow areas near ridgelines, lots of debris piles, and shallow snowpacks where slides in February scoured down to the mid-January structure ~140 cm above ground, with 1 mm rounding FC above and about 30 cm of recent snow. We regularly probed snow depths to avoid potential trigger points, and picked our ascent line to avoid the shallow edges of chutes and bowls. Upper elevations are not carefree at the moment, even if triggering a slab is unlikely. 

Some light drifting in the past few days, but no wind slab in a prime candidate ridgeline leeward starting zone. No sluffs in steep, northerly terrain. 

THe melt freeze crusts we found were not icy and slick except in westerly slopes.