Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
My hope for the day was to dig around and assess our lingering persistent slab problem on a variety of aspects and elevations but overheating sleds and other time constraints kept me on only east and south aspects. Nonetheless, what I found was enlightening. The buried weak layers were well on their way to healing in this location, and new crust formation on top will aid in lowering the likelihood of triggering a persistent slab avalanche. Beyond this problem, I found some evidence of wind slabs and wet loose avalanches but nothing too alarming.
We observed some small stubborn cracking in wind loaded snow along the east side of a ridgeline. We also observed widespread natural rollerballing, but the rollerballs didn't quite have the gumption to turn into bonafide avalanches.Weather
- Air Temp
- 36
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Rain Elevation
- 4000
- Recent Snowfall
- 1cm new / 7cm recent
- Snow Avail For Transport
- none
Temperatures remained well above freezing throughout the day. The sky was overcast, however on our way out in the afternoon, some patches of blue sky appeared. The wind was calm and from the east/southeast. Very light snowfall fell for most of the morning.
Snowpack
Snowpit 1 (E aspect, middle elevation): The snowpack depth at this location was 157cm (62in). I found a few layers that will definitely be future crusts, but at the moment were moist and unsupportable. You could still find buried surface hoar in this location, but it was well rounded and did not present itself in a small column snowpack test. The near surface facets above the 2/7 crust were also moist, and the crust itself as well as the facets below it were dry-moist. A small column test yielded a moderate sudden result at the interface between the near surface facets and the 2/7 crust (CT13SP).
Snowpit 2 (E aspect, upper elevation): The snowpack depth at this location was 185cm (73in). The snow in this location was by and large dry as opposed to the snowpit on the same aspect lower down. However it had definitely seen warming as well as I found new crusts in the upper portion of the snowpack. These crusts were ski supportable, but not boot supportable. You could still finding buried surface hoar here too, but it was similarly rounding and unremarkable. The 2/7 crust/facet complex was at 1F or more hard. A small column test yielded a moderate sudden result within facets (CT15SC). An extended column test yielded a hard non-propagating result just below the first 2/7 crust (ECTN26). I performed a propagation saw test at the interface between the near surface facets and the 2/7 crust and got no result (PSTX). I performed another one within the facets below the 2/7 crust and got a stable result (PST72/100SF).
Snowpit 3 (SE aspect, upper elevation): The snowpack depth at this location was 187cm (74in). The snow at this location was dry, but had definitely gotten wetted as there were boot supportable crusts and ice lenses in the upper portion. I found similar structure with the buried weak layers in this location. I unfortunatly ran out of time to perform any tests, but suspect I would have gotten pretty benign results.