Quick report
We weighed hiking versus skiing, decided for hiking, and were glad that we did. The snow is thin everywhere in the Carson Pass area, and the skis would have been sacrificial. I dug in a couple of locations and was surprised at the variability. In both locations, I saw harder crusts over faceted snow, but I also saw ice, wet snow, consolidating snow, and faceting snow throughout our hike. Temperatures were warm today -- in the upper 40s when we started about noon.
Weather
- Air Temp
- Upper 40s
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Snow Avail For Transport
- none
Almost a bluebird day with very few clouds and little to no wind.
Snowpack
The snowpack remains thin in this area; there were many brown spots of rocks and bushes. Near and in the NE bowl of Elephant's Back, there was evidence of previous SW winds. On a NW aspect at 8850 ft in a sheltered location, I found HS of 37 cm with a 3 cm breakable melt-freeze crust, underneath which was a 25 cm layer of facets that were a little more consolidated than the facets underneath to the ground. In the NE bowl of Elephant's Back at 9100 ft, HS was 27 cm, and the snowpack structure was different with many more layers but similar in that there were crust layers over facets (see snowpit profile).