Quick report
- Collapsing
- isolated
Goal today was to see what the week of storms has done to the NTL and maybe ATL terrain. We found a fair amount of fresh snow in the morning but as the day progressed, and the sun broke through the clouds we saw lots of snow melt, especially below 9k. On our way up we heard two whumpfs in flat-ish terrain but agreed this was over sage or other low brush. We did make it to 11k, dug some pits, and then surprisingly got a few good turns with minimal rock hits on the way down! A few collapses heard above -10300’ while traveling through flat terrain
Weather
- Air Temp
- 30
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Wind Loading
- none
- Recent Snowfall
- 20-30cm
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
Great day out! Perfect temps which became hot in the sun in the rare moments that it peaked through. Mostly a cloudy day with low cloud ceilings around 12k above and 8500’ below. Winds were light out of the North, and the clouds hung low over the Owen’s Valley below but were intermittent in our immediate vicinity.
Snowpack
Thin snowpack below 10k, which discouraged us from leaving the road. At the pack station we grew keen to explore, so we did! Above 10k the pack grew significantly as we climbed, and all info collected was above 10k. HS varied from 30-70cm, with the most on north aspects. Through a variety of hand pits, I found a MF crust that sat close to or at the base of the snowpack. The MF crust on the east aspects seemed to have no snow or totally saturated snow below. While the MF crust on the north aspects sat on top of well developed facets. This MF crust was never higher than 2-3 cm off the ground. We dug two pits, one on a north aspect and one at an east aspect, both relatively at 11,000’. We did not look at the grains of snow in depth, just some “facet hands” at the base… In the North pit we found; HS 65cm and an essentially right side up snowpack… 65-34cm F 34-15cm 4F 15-12cm P MF crust 12-0cm (ground) 1F facets A CT test revealed CT14 at 34cm. Another deep tap test here got nothing on the MF crust. The East pit; HS 60cm Fist hard progressing to 1F to the MF crust. Then pencil hard MF crust which sat on bare ground. No tests were conducted.. our second and “hasty” pit.