Snodgrass

A few muffled collapses on the early February weak layer, but quieter than I expected.  The snowpack structure continues to look very poor on northerly slopes in this area; it's hard to have much confidence with 2-foot thick slabs resting on surface hoar.  Test results suggest human triggering remains a concern.

I experienced a few muffled collapses at various points on low-angled shady terrain. On a few features on the boundary of east and southeast, I produced a couple of moderate sized collapses in the upper snowpack. I think I was collapsing the uppermost crust in the snowpack.

The goal of today's fieldwork was to get a better handle on the Persistent Slab problem in the Southeast Mountains below treeline.  I toured around lower Snodgrass and performed multiple test profiles on the early February weak layer.  Test results were consistent moderate propagating (ECTP 14 - 17).  I dug below treeline into a few drifted features, a few sheltered sites, and a few wind-eroded places with similar results (the exception was locations where the surface hoar was laying flat, likely from a previous collapse).   Slabs ranged from 45 to 75 cm thick.  The 2/2 layer on shady slopes was surface hoar 8 - 15mm resting on 1-1.5mm facets.  The slab above has embedded a small amount into the surface hoar but at most sites the surface hoar stripe was blatant.  A few more easterly locations had a soft crust at the interface.  Results suggest improving conditions with reduced sensitivity but the structure remains poor and untrustworthy.  Snow surfaces on northerly slopes have begun faceting the past few days; grain size remains small.

Sunny slopes moistened today, but the features I crossed didn't pose much of a loose avalanche problem.