Elephant's Back/Hump

Starting at Carson Pass at 11:15 am, the snow was still a bit cold from prior winds. As I skinned in to Elephant's Back NE, I noticed wind crusts of 3-5 cm in depth from the surface. I ski cut a small steep slope but only managed to release floor tile size chunks of maximum 5 cm in thickness. On the plateau near the Back approach, it struck me how much it looked like mid-winter but felt like mid-April. The sun was very strong. Once I popped over into the NE bowl, it was another place altogether with major sun effects. I saw a cascade of wet loose from the cliffs at the top of the Back. The cornices were much larger than they have been of late. Plus it looked like some had broken off and tumbled into the bowl. At 12:30 pm, I traversed across the entire bowl to ski the truly NE aspect, and it was nice skiing with a tiny bit of grab from the softening crust. The gut of the bowl, the E face, was the best with less or no grab. The SE face was too soft and mushy. Ski pen across the bowl was about 12 cm. As I skinned up to the Hump area, I checked boot pen at about 1 pm on an E face. I sank down to my knee or 42 cm. Ski pen was 12 cm. I skied the N/NW faces near the Hump summit, and they had very nice skiing with a bit of wet powder-like snow. Near the road, I noticed a human triggered avalanche, which had been reported yesterday. It slid on an area that was down to dirt before this storm. 64 cm of new snow was in the area, judging from the Devil's Ladder parking lot. It was rapidly turning to mush on my skin back to Carson Pass. Very small areas of cracking and collapsing, where wind effects had occurred.

Elephant's Back/Hump

Quick report

Weather

Snowpack

Avalanche