Quick report
- Aspect
- Northwest
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 2408 m
- Slope Angle
- 20°
Snow was better than expected with plenty of surface facets to make turns on. Solar aspects are definitely shallower and firmer, but are generally easy to avoid. Lots of brush and near surface hazards.
At the upper elevations wind is definitely pushing snow around and even at 7,900 ft there was sastrugi developing on local windward aspects. My pit was dug in a deposition zone and most zones do not have a meter of snow.
Observed wet loose slide paths on the Ben Lomond headwall, but were uncertain of when they developed.
Snowpack
Along the skin track there were varying amounts of snow depth and surface conditions: S to SE with a growing melt-freeze crust, and from E to N increasing in the amount of protected surface facets. Above 7,500 there were also zones of wind affected snow.