Fresno Mtn

Other than a few dry loose avalanches we did not see recent avalanche activity. In the afternoon the sun was hot and temperatures rose to around 37 F. Near the highway the snow was unfrozen and heavy. Above 1,600’ there was a rain crust that turned to a sun crust to 2,600’. We found widespread, large surface hoar in all of our hand pits buried 3" deep. Most of the time it was under a crust. The main concern will be where the surface hoar exists underneath a slab deep enough to trigger an avalanche. We are also going to keep track of the sun crust on sunny slopes when the next storm arrives. 

There was about 2" of new snow from the highway to 2,600' where we turned around. The surface hoar was buried around 3" deep under a 1" crust that was still moist to 1600'. We found it in all of our hand pits to 2,200'. The crust was supportable until it became thin and started to disappear around 2,200. Then......we found yet another crust. What seemed to be a stout sun crust continued to 2,600 where we stopped. The surface hoar almost always under a crust when we could find it. Its size decreased with elevation from over 1" sitting upright to around 4mm.