Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
Snowpack BTL exposed to precipitation off rain shadow from evergreens was very consolidated and low coverage. Snowpack out in the open BTL was a mixture of different conditions -- in some areas my buddy and I found dry powder (seemed like wind fetch) and in other areas we found 1"~2" deep zipper crust (caused by solar input?). Interestingly enough, NTL/ATL sun exposed south facing slopes up Spark Plug Mountain had extremely low snow coverage--much lower than it was a few weeks ago when I attempted Surprise and Spark Plug in the same day. My partner and I ran into a ton of exposed rock and travel via snowshoes was tedious due to a mix of exposed boulders, periodic deadfall, and non-ideal travel conditions for cross-country trekking. We stuck to trails whenever possible due to concerns over terrain traps, e.g., voids between boulders. The snow crystals on the surface have definitely been exposed to a number of dry clear nights and it seems that the various strong layers are starting to sandwich large weaker grains below 6k'. I didn't measure the size, but the grains at the lower section of the Pieper Pass trail were quite small.
Avalanche
Observed small recent debris on NE col below Surprise Mountain from what I assume was a heat/sun triggered slide. All of the debris in aggregate looked D1 in size and appeared to be wet loose.