Silver Peak

We went for a tour on Silver Peak this morning. Air temperatures warmed quickly to above freezing.

We choose to gain the East Ridge of Silver via a south aspect slope on the east end of the East Ridge, avoiding the PWL zone until we had more data. Snow surface melt was occurring in widespread areas during the late morning hours. In this area at 10:45 near 7,700', we encountered snow surface melt with 1.5 inches of wet surface snow on top of another inch of cold snow that had yet to undergo melt. Below that was a supportable rain crust.

We then moved over to north aspect terrain to dig a testpit to check in on the recent PWL. In this area, the PWL was strong with only a one step difference in hand hardness from the adjacent layers. Snowpit test results gave no indications of instability. We then choose to descend NE aspect terrain for the north summit of Silver. Areas of cold surface snow, some of it near surface facets, was limited to fully shaded areas above 7,500'.

On our exit, we found ski supportable wet snow conditions on an open SE aspect at 7,400'. As we descended down a drainage with options for E and NE aspects, we encountered surface wet snow on all aspects below 7,000' to 7,200', even in the deep shade.

Melt-freeze conditions in effect on mid to upper elevation E-SE aspect terrain and on all aspects below 7,000'. Testpit targeting the recent PWL was dug on a N aspect, NTL slope, at 7,920'. HS was 295 cm with the recent PWL down 105 cm. We found P hard slab over 1 F well rounded facets. Snowpit test scores were ECTX, DTN targeting the recent PWL and PST 100/105 end targeting the recent PWL. We were able to easily identify the buried surface hoar layer at the base of the recent snow from the large storm event. It was bonded into the snowpack and unreactive.