Quick report
Traveled to the Apgars in GNP to enjoy the "partly sunny" day. It was... cloudy. • A skiff of snow exists at the trailhead. Just barely enough to put skis/skins on at the car (3900'). • However, downhill travel on skis is not recommended below 4500'. • Conditions improved a bit above 5000' where there is 8-10 inches of snow on the ground. • Overall, coverage was highly variable due to exposed vegetation and rocks, but ranged from 6 inches to 24 inches between 4500' and 6250' (our day's high point) We were curious to see if we could find any buried surface hoar today at the 11/17 interface. We had uncovered some yesterday in the Whitefish Range. • We came up empty handed, however we only poked around on south facing slopes. • Our pit site on a SE facing slope at mid elevations revealed a thin sun crust at the 11/17 interface instead. We did not observe this crust during our tour yesterday. • Several additional handpits revealed that this sun crust at the 11/17 seemed fairly widespread across the slope. • This crust may have inhibited or slowed surface hoar growth prior to snowfall starting on 11/17. None observed
Weather
- Air Temp
- 19
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Recent Snowfall
- 20
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
• Mostly Cloudy day with one or two splashes of sunshine sprinkled in. • Calm winds, and a trace amount of lightly falling snow during the day.
Snowpack
Recorded details from one snowpit on a southeast facing slope at 6100'. • HS 45cm • 20cm of recent snow since 11/17. • Identified a thin sun crust at the 11/17 interface. • Did not observe any buried surface hoar. • Stability tests produced non propagating results on a layer 5cm above the 11/17 sun crust. No significant hardness step present at this interface, and it was also resistant to shovel shearing after each of our tests. • small faceting rounds observed directly above the basal ice layer. •Pit Profile attached for more details.