Mt. Judah

I went up to Donner Pass and Mt. Judah to look at wind slab development in an area that reached the higher end of last night's storm totals.  Up to 1 to 2'' of new snow was found in this area.  Periods of very light snow ended quickly this morning with decreasing cloud cover and periods of sun.  Gale force S-SW winds were blowing snow and swirling around the Donner Summit area.  Small reactive wind slabs were found in wind loaded terrain up to 4 to 6'' deep.  All of these wind slabs encountered were size D1 or smaller and did not extend very far downslope.  Most of the wind transport occurred in the morning hours and began to decrease towards midday due to running out of available snow to transport.  New cornice formation was observed along wind loaded ridges and these cracked and failed easily with ski kicks.  Some small sluffing occurred with the new snow sliding on top of the firm old snow surface.  Travel conditions were pretty good where you could find some new soft snow on top of a previous smooth snow surface..