Sherwin Ridge

We hiked the Sherwin Ridge to dig and check on the poor snowpack structure we've been associating with the current persistent slab problem.

• We found some older avalanches.
• We found a soft, weak snowpack with no slab over the weak layers.
• North winds were cranking and stripping typically loaded slopes. The top of Red Cone Bowl is back to dirt.
• We checked on some stiffer drifts on the ridge that had been deposited by northerly winds. These were small and showed no signs of instability. I tried a hand shear test and it took hard force to pull the stiff slab away from the softer snow underneath.
• The sun was affecting the snow on solar aspects - making it crusty.

We dug on a slope adjacent to the flank of one of the avalanches. The snowpack was soft - much softer than when forecasters last visited the area on 12/28.

Most of the layers under the most recent storm snow (which fell 1/2-1/3) have faceted to some degree.

We got no propagation in our snow pit tests. We did get non-propagating results with easy force between layers of wind-broken grains near the surface. This interface is likely where the adjacent avalanche failed. 

We got sudden results in a small column compression test in depth hoar near the base of the snowpack.

These results indicate the weakness of some of the layers in our snowpack - and the potential for initiating a fracture in those layers. However, they also indicate that a stiff, cohesive slab over the weak layers is missing from this area.