Quick report
- Collapsing
- isolated
We observed wet, warm, and shallow spring-like conditions throughout our tour and experiments today. We experienced a few local collapses while ascending and descending most likely from failure of the well developed (yet rounding) facets below the decomposing late December crust.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 45
- Cloud Cover
- scattered
- Wind Loading
- none
- Recent Snowfall
- 0
- Snow Avail For Transport
- none
Lovely day out with direct sunlight most of the day. Water production at the snow surface slowed down/shut off with increasing cloud cover at 2:15pm.
Snowpack
We headed up to an area with a known shallow snowpack and weak structure to conduct experiments focused on the interactions of slabs and weak layers as the wetting front progressed. We collected a full profile (attached) which was wet in the upper snowpack and moist the rest of the way through and measured completely isothermic (in January!). We measured liquid water content of the snowpack before each test then tested propagation potential with both PSTs and ECTs. We collected ~ 140 LWC measurements and completed 11 PSTs and 10 ECTs with generally consistent results. LWC was generally highest (value ~12) near the surface and at the base of the snowpack with variably moist values in the mid pack due to variable preferential flow paths. All ECT tests propagated and all PST tests produced stable results. - 2x ECTPV on FC below late December crust - 3x ECTP13 on FC above late December crust (with 2 that stepped down to FC below crust) - 3x ECTP14 on FC above late December crust - 1x ECTP15 on FC above late December crust - 1x PST 90/100 END on FC above late December crust - 6x PST 95/100 END on FC above late December crust - 3x PST 95/100 END on FC below late December crust - 1x PST 30/100 SF on FC above late December crust
Avalanche
- Size
- D2.5 R2
- Type
- WS
- Count
- 2
- Aspect
- N
- Elevation
- 6400 ft
We observed 2 natural avalanches on Strawberry Mountain's north face as we left West Glacier for our field day. Photographed through binos (not best images).