Quick report
Went for a walk up to the start of the summer lion head traverse to see if we could find any evidence of new wind slabs from the recent 5 inches of snow. The trail was not well traveled recently and boot penetration ranged from 8 inches in compacted areas to knee and hip deep wading in others where wind drifted snow had covered the beaten path and deeper melt-freeze crusts were unsupportive.
At the start of the traverse, the old snow surface became much more supportive and boot penetration decreased to 5 cm or so with a thin wind crust on top of unconsolidated soft snow and a pencil hard supportive surface below. Hand shears revealed a thin wind crust on top of newer unconsoidated snow that did not react as a slab and seemed to be bonding to the old hard surface.
We dug a pit in a sheltered and treed area before the exposed traverse and found the old snow, pencil hard slab sitting on a think weaker layer approximately 35cm down that reacted in snow stability tests. The terrain seemed filled in and well connected. 280cm probes did not hit ground while trying to determine snowpack depth. An old crown from several weeks ago was no longer visible.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 1F (summit)
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- light
- Recent Snowfall
- 7cm (Hermit Lake)
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Clear and cold with moderate northwest winds.
Snowpack
We dug a snow pit at 4280ft on a SE aspect in a treed and sheltered area just before the traverse.
Hand Hardness from the surface, down was as follows:
- 2cm wind crust
- 5cm 4F newer snow
- 25cm Pencil hard slab
- 3cm 1F weak Layer
- Pencil hard snow
Two Snow stability tests were preformed:
- ECTP12 35cm down
- PST 55/End 28cm down (same weak layer)