Elephant's Back

We went to Elephant's Back to observe recent wind effects. As usual, there was plenty of evidence of prior SW winds, including the corniced ridge of Elephant's Back. But in addition, we saw much evidence of recent NE/E winds with sastrugi in the opposite direction of the normally prevailing SW winds in this area. Elephant's Back NE Bowl has a number of small prior slides all along and underneath the cliff band. Descending in the bowl, the snow varied quite a bit with about 1cm softer snow on top of a hard crust towards the top at 12:30 pm. Lower, there were patches of powder, breakable crust, and hard snow. As we approached Elephant's Hump, we noticed crust on every aspect except North. North aspects were not devoid of crust but had the least crust and some powder in places. On N, NE, and E aspects, the crust seemed to be due to wind. On the other aspects, they appeared to be melt-freeze crusts. On some south faces, there was almost corn, but it was all still locked up in a thin crust. It never warmed up enough today to produce wet loose problems at these higher elevations.

Wind activity observed from primary SW direction and also from recent activity from the NE/E direction. Wind and/or melt freeze crust observed on all aspects except some N aspects.