Peak 2

The poor snowpack structure—hard, firm wind slabs overlying facets—still exists, even though we did not observe any concerning test results. Most of the forecasted snow and wind occurred after our field day, so we were unable to accurately assess the size and distribution of fresh wind slabs and will focus on that during tomorrow’s field day.

We dug three snowpits, all showing a similar structure: a surface melt-freeze crust intermixed with a wind skin, firm old wind slabs, several weak faceted layers in the upper snowpack, and depth hoar at the base. While stability tests were not reactive, the underlying poor structure remains.

With a return to sustained cold temperatures at ridgetops, weak layers are no longer trending toward healing and are likely to stay the same or begin weakening again.