Quick report
*Wind exposed wide-open South aspects were a patchwork of wind-scoured exposed crust and small pockets of windslab up to a foot thick. *Small drifts on the South side of ridgetop from the weekend's N and NE winds. *Top of N-facing forested bowl at 6400' had some dunes from cross-loading and upslope snow transport. Not reactive to ski cutting. *Skirted around these drifts to ski quality pow unaffected by the wind. *Sloughing was slow and short-running on 38 degree pitches on N aspect around 6000' *Very minor cracking around turns in some locations. No instability observed.
Weather
- Air Temp
- below freezing
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Recent Snowfall
- 30 cm since 3/21
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
Partly cloudy and 10 degrees F at 8:00am. Mostly overcast by 11:00am. Temps never climbed out of the 20's at around the 6000' level. Calm in the morning, with the occasional light Southerly breeze in the afternoon.
Snowpack
* In areas not effected by last weekend's wind or more recent bursts of sunshine, I found first hardness recent snow that ranged in depth from 5cm at 4500', to 10cm at 5200' on a West aspect, to 30cm at 6400' on a North aspect. * The recent snow sat on a supportive crust from the Equinox Meltdown almost everywhere I traveled, though the crust was not as obvious or robust at my pit location on a cross-loaded N-facing slope at roughly 6400'. *At this location, HS was over 250cm, and the Feb. 3 crust (Pencil hardness, 3cm thick) was 140cm from the surface. *ECTX x1; CTE down 20cm Q3 x3; CTH down 60cm Q2 x3. * On an East aspect at 5800' a hand pit found 25cm F hardness snow that did not shear cleanly off the most recent crust. The uppermost crust was 10cm thick in this location, with a thick layer of moist snow below it.