Quick report
- Red Flags
- Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Aside from Low and South, things don't look good for future loads. Best will be to get a good look at the coverage and continuity of this trash heap snowpack in the days preceding our next snow.</p>
Deeper layers that looked strong a couple weeks ago are faceting and weak.
The most interesting example of the deteriorating mid-November crust I could find was ~9000' E-facing and was still 1F. Snow below and above had weakened significantly.
Snowpack
Traveled from Empire Pass area to Murdock. Generally along the PC Ridgeline:
-Faceting is occurring in all snow that is not a crust. Snowpack height is less than 60cm even on high protected slopes and the night temps are providing all of November's snow a faceting temperature gradient.
-While areas of the upper Cottonwoods still hold somewhat weak, rightside-up snowpacks, much of the N through E of this area is more faceted throughout. Thinner HS has slopes that weren't wind-slabbed Monday night faceting to the ground ("Sandboxing" colloquially). Full ski penetration on steeper pitches, just tip-toeing and hoping for soft shrubs underneath....
-The mid-Nov thermal crust is present but deteriorating on all but high northerly slopes. I imagine this fully deteriorates soon with current weather.
-Southerly slopes continue to have their surfaces heated and cooled enhancing the already stout M/F crust. Very thin, discontinuous snowpack on mid and lower elevations and all solar aspects are a layercake of crusts and further-weakening facets.