Quick report
- Red Flags
- Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Broken record here - poor snowpack structure remains. BUT, today's pit on a West face NTL showed some of the stronger snow I have seen in a while.</p>
Thanks to Alex Mudler for helping me dig a snowpit today! Here's Alex enjoying some slushy spring-like conditions on a South facing slope.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Another day without experiencing any collapsing. A week ago I dug on a West face at 9,900 ft. and found some of the weakest snow in the range (HS 80cm). Today I dug on a West face at 11,230 ft. and found stronger snow than I have been observing in other pits over the past couple weeks. HS is 111cm, and the snow profile shows a dense slab over the weak layer making it harder to affect. Notice that the weak layer has gained some hardness. The upper part of the weak layer is now 4F, while the bottom is F+. Test scores were ECTX and CTN. It's nice to see test scores like this, but I would like to see much more snow on top of this weak layer before we are out of the woods.</p> <p> </p>
Surface hoar formation observed mostly in low elevation, low angle terrain. Some small grained surface hoar was observed at my pit site on a West face at 11,200 ft. SH was isolated on steeper slopes. The skiing is still really good on the shady slopes in soft, settled powder. We found slushy, spring-like conditions on the solars today. Last night the winds bumped up just enough to move snow around on the most open, exposed slopes. ENE winds overnight blew in the low to mid teens mph and I noticed wind transport on exposed slopes like Middle Cirque and Red Snow Cirque. Look closely at the photo and you'll see what I mean. There are some tracks in Red Snow Cirque from Monday that got covered up by last night's light snow transport.