Quick report
- Aspect
- West
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall
- Elevation
- 2896 m
- Slope Angle
- 20°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Winds lighter than expected.</p>
We dug pits on West aspects 8,050' and 9,450' for comparison
At the lower elevation there was a 2.5 cm moist crust just under the storm snow, with moist fist-hard snow below. Below that, two rain crusts down 30cm and 45cm, with some water-pooling noted on the lower crust. No activity in compression or extended column tests.
At the upper elevation there was no wet layer. Compression test had Q2 failure under a 1.5cm crust on rounding facets but was difficult to trigger (CT 22). No propagation in the extended column test (ECTN 18, same layer).
Photos of lower and then upper pits.
Below:
Photos: Low elevation slopes (but not the meadows!) were bare, upper elevations got a thick coat of graupel.
Videos: Push-a-lanches below 8,000', a wet entrance and exit. None of the good surfy skiing captured on camera.
Really a good storm for Provo!
Screen capture of water amounts, at 1.04" SWE from Bunne'ls, this area did just as well us the upper Big Cottonwood and better than Little Cottonwood. When you go high enough, of course..
Video of snow-globe after precip-type switched from graupel to large flakes.
Danger was low and skiing was great in the upper elevations. Moderate for wet activity in the lower elevationss
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>No evidence of natural wet activity, but in the lower elevations a good kick got snow moving and gouging 30" deep. Seemed like wet activity could pose a problem in terrain traps but not much else. Not as dramatic as it might have been had the rain fallen on dry snow.</p>
Below 6,200 feet the snow surface was completely wet, with rain falling. Most aspects were melted down to the ground and the Big Springs road had running water. From 6,200 to 6,800 snow was falling but only a cm accumulated; everything else melted as it landed. Sticky! From there to roughly 8,300' we had graupel overlying wet snow. Boot penetration was up to the thigh and deep-gouging push-a-lanches were easy to trigger. From 8,300' to our high-point at 9,700' the old snow surface was supportable: thick and damp towards the bottom, dry and thin up high. Wet new snow bonded well to the old surface, and the dense graupel made for great skiing with no bottom-feeding.