Quick report
- Cracking
- specific
We found significant spatial variability in the terrain today with an overall poor interface between the snow from these last two events. More sheltered areas held softer, more reactive slabs that were being actively loaded by falling and blowing snow. In talking with other skiers in the terrain that morning, this weak interface we found was also present in the snowfields below Duchess. Another skier mentioned skiing Hillman's earlier in the morning and finding the surface snow to be stiffer when they went up again a couple hours later. While these slabs were relatively small and specific, they are actively building and stiffening on a weak interface and showed propagation potential in sheltered areas. At 4700' on a S/SE aspect, we observed multiple failures on a weak snow interface between Wednesday/Thursday's storm and Friday's/today's snow. This interface was ~20cm down and failed easily during compression tests (CT9, CT8). We observed cracking under our skis near vegetation and rocks, breaking at the same interface as our compression tests. A PST on this layer showed some propagation potential as well (PST 50/100 End). On more open slopes, the surface slab was more stubborn and supportive.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- obscured
- Wind Loading
- moderate
- Recent Snowfall
- 11cm
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
Broken skies turned obscured with light snowfall and blowing snow. There was moderate wind loading throughout our time in the bowl (930-1130)
Snowpack
Where we dug at 4700', we found 35 cm of snow on top of an old crust. The top 20cm of new snow (1F) sat on top of 15cm of snow from Wednesday/Thursday's storm (1F-4F). At the interface between these two layers, we found larger grains with some graupel mixed in. We had failures in hand shears and stability tests within this interface. The snow from Wednesday/Thursday, however, seems to be well bonded to the old crust it fell on. On more N/NE aspects, we observed similar snowpack structure and sensitivity, but shallower, with 20cm above the crust with the weak interface sitting 10cm below the surface.