SCS

Quick report

Fortunately for me I was able to ski both 12/27 and 12/28. Snow began on 12/26 at wing ridge as my partner had been up that day. It had snowed heavily overnight 12/26 and we started 12/27 with 6-8inches in the parking lot. That day we had a nice tour in a full on snow storm. Till about 1 the day was calm with little wind and moderate snow fall. In the afternoon the snowfall and wind picked up to moderate with strong gust. on the later part of our tour we ascended South ridge and here we found a pocket of totally different snow pack. This part of the ridge had obviously been scoured multiple times and the snow depth was at times nearly still just the ground. Atop this was about 4" of wind slab that was producing shooting cracks. I only mention this because although I feel the snow pack is generally strong, its still early season so every aspect is still reacting differently. At the top of south ridge we found a small North/ North-East facing test slope we skied with no reaction. All our small test thru the day and since it was snowing all day we played is more conservative than some days but did choose to ski slopes >30degrees but nothing too steep. 12/28 Blue Bird day with no wind at SCS. The tour description is above. The snow pit today and the data from the day before had our group feeling good about stepping out onto some steeper north facing terrain. Our first run was great and skied nicely. On our second run I wanted to check out a roll over and small pitch that was greater than 40degrees. Our had pit in this location continued to confirm no red flags, but at this location both our second and third rider in the group experienced some sloughing of the new unconsolidated snow, but there was no propagation of any kind. We suspect that since this pitch was at lower elevation perhaps the moisture from before Christmas formed a true crust here. Welcome back winter, sorry I never take pictures and use too many words. Right side up snow pack, no instabilities in any tests performed. Compression Test, Shovel tilt test, quick hand pits

Weather

Air Temp

20

Cloud Cover

clear

Wind Loading

light

Recent Snowfall

35

Snow Avail For Transport

large amounts

Cold Blue Bird Day

Snowpack

Dug a pit on a north East aspect at 7600. We did not find a stout crust, or really a crust at all that has been described as coming on 12/26 or just before Christmas at this location. Our pit location had seen some wind and we found 14" of new snow falling on 12/26-12/27. At the begging of this storm it fell as a layer of graupel, then directly below this it changed to 1 finger hardness. This is where we expected to find the reported crust but we instead only found a density change. We performed a shovel tilt test with the new snow yielding no results, and we did a compression test also yielding no results. A truly rare treat.