Weather
- Air Temp
- 38
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Wind Loading
- none
- Recent Snowfall
- Trace
- Snow Avail For Transport
- none
Skies began to clear about 10:30 AM where we observed an undercast from Summer Lion Head. Tuckerman Ravine cleared closer to 12:00 PM. Clearing skies allowed for the sun to effect and warm the surface snow. Low winds and warm temperatures were observed.
Snowpack
Witnessed multiple small wet loose point releases in the new surface snow on Summer Lion Head trail at about 10:30 AM once cloud coverage receded and the sun hit the snow.
Found a thin surface crust from warming yesterday that was softening, as was the surface snow. Digging down to the stout melt-freeze crust in snow depth 1.5-2 feet in depth showed that some of the wind slabs have settled and bonded and were not obviously discernible. The surface snow was firmer, heavier, and moistening at 1F in hardness. At this time this was 6-8 inches in depth. Underneath this was dry snow and on top of the melt-freeze crust was a 3 inch layer of 4F softer snow.
The crown extended on the looker’s left half of Summer Lion Head but on the looker’s right there was no crown and the snow looked like a larger wind slab remained as the snow was rounded, pillowy, and planar. We chose not to walk across this like initially planned considering the consequence of a pretty gnarly runout below us.
In Tuckerman Ravine saw additional evidence of small wet loose point releases from yesterday and today. Some of the snow that had seemed rounded, like a pocket in the bottom of Right Gully, seems to have settled likely due to solar gain the last three days.