Quick report
- Cracking
- specific
Today's outing was a great confirmation of a few things being tracked for the forecast: new snow totals, its bond to layers below, and what those layers are at middle elevations. It also further confirmed that the snowpack is severly lacking on S-W aspects higher than just the lower elevations. Some questions remain as to how much more snow fell at upper elevations.
Wind slabs: we observed snow blowing to the E along the ridgline. We began triggering cracks in unsupported, wind loaded features at the bottom of the middle elevation band, and the cracks grew in size near the top of the elevation band. I triggered cracking on north and east aspects. Dry loose: it was easy to trigger fast running sluffs of cohesionless snow in steep terrain at middle elevations. At lower elevations, the new snow was well bonded to the crust below which hadn't refroze as well overnight. The sluffs remained small, but could definitely have grown bigger with a long and steep slope.Weather
- Air Temp
- 34
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Wind Loading
- light
- Rain Elevation
- 2600
- Recent Snowfall
- 12
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Oddly enough, it was gustier in town both in the morning and afternoon than at the trailhead. We didn't really experience much wind again after leaving the truck until we traveled along the middle elevation ridgeline of Red Mountain. Even then it was mostly light with some moderate gusts. It was a cold wind that made temperatures feel colder than I think they were. Very light snowfall began around 9am and picked up to light around 10am. It continued as we descended, and snowfall petered out as we hit the Cooper Rd. There were periods of broken sky cover between 9-10am as well.
Snowpack
Lower Elevations: The 03/25 crust only had a soft refreeze overnight. Just enough to make sleds overheat still, but not enough to be a slick sliding surface for new snow falling on top. There was a small boot penetration into the crust. There was about 1cm (0.5in) of new snow on top. This was all on easterly aspects. There is no continuous snow coverage on south and west aspects.
Middle Elevations: The 03/25 crust was very hard and refrozen, making for challenging side hilling. I observed 3cm (1in) of 1-2mm near surface facets above the crust on easterly aspects. These facets were buried by around 12cm (5in) of new snow. The new snow clearly lacked a good bond to either the facets or the crust. Numerous signs of wind slab and dry loose instability were observed. Observing westerly aspects at ridgeline, there were few places where continuous snow coverage existed due to both warmth and wind scouring. Jagged rocks were the greater hazard.