northern flank of Heather Mountain

Blair Piggot and I toured up the heather mountain fsr yesterday and made our way up to 1830m about 2.3 km north of heather mountain peak. There, on a north aspect, we dug a pit. Snow was 170cm deep. Column test failed CTH22 RP down 40cm and CTH26 RP down 66cm. The surprise was that this failure was 40cm down in the storm snow—not 66cm down at the interface between the storm snow and the drought affected snowpack. We speculate that the failure was on a layer caused by the warm spell between the two storms last week.

windless broken cloud

Column test failed CTH22 RP down 40cm and CTH26 RP down 66cm. The surprise was that this failure was 40cm down in the storm snow—not 66cm down at the interface between the storm snow and the drought affected snowpack. (where the column not surprisingly failed also) We speculate that the failure was on a layer, perhaps a thin crust, caused by the warm spell between the two storms last week.