Quick report
- Collapsing
- isolated
We toured out to the Ophir Peak/Price Peak area today. We observed an isolated area of large surface hoar beneath wind slab on an E aspect at 9,060' (more info in the snowpack segment below). Wet surface snow capable of rollerballs was observed on solar aspect terrain in the same elevation zone. There was a very thin and weak rain/mist crust on the snow surface up to our high point of travel of 9,200', but it had little effect on travel conditions.
We triggered one isolated collapse on a hard wind slab in cross loaded N aspect NTL terrain near 9,100'.Weather
- Air Temp
- 36
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- none
- Rain Elevation
- above 9,200'
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Warm day with high level cloud cover and enough incoming solar radiation to melt snow on solar aspects at 9,000'.
Snowpack
We found a isolated area of buried 10 mm surface hoar, surprisingly close to the ridgetop, beneath 15 to 30 cm of wind slab on an E aspect at 9,060' (noted lat/long). I dug hand pits in at least six other locations on N-NE-E aspects between 8,200' and 9,100' and did not find any other spots of buried surface hoar. I got ECTN results where the slab was 4 to 6 inches thick and ECTP results where the slab was closer to one foot thick. Wind slab was 1F+ to P hard and sat on top of 4F hard rounded grains with surface hoar at the interface.