Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
Toured up Gold Cord Lake Basin to see if there was any wind loading on leeward aspects and to continue to monitor snowpack structure. Hatch showed 15+ hours of winds in the 20s yesterday so we were curious to see if there were any signs of wind effect. The upper snowpack is heavily faceted and we experienced rounding and strength in the midpack. This is all sitting on developed depth hoar that is increasingly appearing clumpy in the bottom pack.
Observed some isolated cracking in some windward and recently crossloaded (south) aspects where yesterday's winds had formed thin slabs (see photo). It was challenging to find continuity in these thin (2-5") wind slabs and we stomped on a lot of previously wind loaded features. Isolated cracking did not propagate and we did not observe any other signs of instability.Weather
- Air Temp
- 27
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Wind Loading
- light
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Broken skies made for good definition and shadows--a true break from the "low light, big dreams" of the past week in the Pass. Calm to light Easterly winds today with no wind transported snow.
Snowpack
The snowpack was generally firm and supportable with soft facets. There was plenty of variability on either side: in some places on our tour, facets were sitting on stout, slick old wind slabs. On truly leeward, protected terrain on northerly aspects, facets went to the ground (waist deep+). Semi-recent trace snow (top 1-2cm) was observable above 4,000'. We observed small, isolated wind slabs but no red flags of instability (see above).
Depths in the upper elevations on our tour (4,500'+) were 180-220cm. Snowpit at 4,700' on a W aspect 27* slope got ECTX in results (no results, no propagation).
Ski quality was predominantly soft facets with some intermittent firm, old wind slabs. It was pleasantly good riding conditions given the fact we have had virtually no snow in the month of February #Squarepow.