Lake Dinah

It was nice to be back in Seeley and back on the sleds!

Above about 6500 feet there was 4 inches of soft new snow on buried surface hoar. This surface hoar formed during the January drought. Based on quick hand pits, it exists on most aspects at our middle elevation band. We did not travel extensively into our upper elevation band today.

 We did not get any concerning test results on the surface hoar layer in our pits. However, we suspect we would have in wind-loaded areas with a stiffer and thicker slab.

In the afternoon, the top few inches of snow became moist and we saw roller balls.

Minor cracking around snowmobiles on isolated steep rolls. Cracks were about four inches deep and associated with the newly buried surface hoar layer. We also saw roller balls in the afternoon as the snow surface warmed.

We found buried surface hoar in most of the area we travelled. Between 6500 and 7100 feet, it was 3-5mm in size, and down about 4 inches (10 cm) under soft (fist hardness) new snow. We dug two pits within this elevation band (N and SE aspects) and got no propagation in extended column tests. In some locations this surface hoar sat on a crust, and in others it sat on a layer of soft (four-finger hardness) facets.

We also found both the December 26th crust and the mid-December atmospheric river crusts buried 15 inches (40 cm) and 40 inches (100 cm), respectively. This was in a pit where the total snow height was 65 inches (165 cm). There were no weak layers associated with these interfaces.