Quick report
No obvious signs of unstable conditions. The 4-8" of new snow was easily sliding off the old snow surface in steep terrain in the trees. It was not acting like a slab yet but it seemed cohesive enough to behave like a storm slab if we get more snow overnight.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 30s
- Cloud Cover
- obscured
- Wind Loading
- moderate
- Rain Elevation
- 500-800'
- Recent Snowfall
- 4-8"
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
Moderate to heavy snowfall with 4-8" of new snow on the ground and light winds throughout the day. We were pleasantly surprised when the rain turned to snow by about 500' on our drive up. On the way back in the afternoon the rain line had come up a bit to about 700'.
Snowpack
We dug hand pits on the skin up and found upright buried surface hoar at 1500' and 2000', which failed easily in hand shears. We stopped to dig a pit at 2200' on a SE aspect and did not find the buried surface hoar in that location. We moved to another location at 2100' on a N aspect and also did not find a consistent layer of surface hoar. There were no other concerning weak layers in the pits we dug, and the surface snow was compressing as we tapped during our stability tests (CT N PC at 2200', ECTN 12 down 20cm at the new snow old snow interface in the 2100' pit).