Quick report
Toured up to Sargeant’s today from the resort parking lot. Still pretty thin and a little bit of a schwack until going up the mountain proper. Winds were light and variable on the way up to mildly gusty at the top. Up until about 7600ft there was a very stout crust with 1-1.5” of fresh on top. Higher up the new snow all appeared to be surface hoar. Dug a pit on a 28deg north aspect at 7700ft. HS 94cm. You could see a very firm crust about 45cm down and then 20cm below that another crust with rounding facets to the bottom. As expected and similar from other profiles in recent observations, ECT resulted in a ECTX. Was able to pull out (with a lot of force) the higher up layer, top half of the snowpack. Some signs of wind loading off the top ridge but a few kick tests didn’t cause any full release. Note - i am visiting from out of town and have not been monitoring the local snowpack this whole season. Been reading up the past week prior to our visit here for the holidays. Wanted to check the snowpack prior to skiing anything of consequence and the conditions warranted just enjoying the scenery and tour. We ended up skiing the short east face shot just south of the peak and then coming back down the west shoulder, following our up track. Honestly, the best skiing was the lower part due to the surface crust being so stout, more predictable, and not punchy like it was higher up. I’m guessing the hard surface crust up until 7600ft was due to recent warming event. There were a few signs of point releases from the south/southwest cliffs off Sargeant’s that were slightly covered from the new snow.