Quick report

Waterhouse

Avalanche.org observerCentral Sierra Nevada
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Observation photo 1

Quick report

Toured north to east aspects 7700-9400ft from 3-5pm. It was snowing about 1cm per hour. The wind picked up notably from the west around 4:40. It had been light wind in the meadow, calm in the trees, and not gusting very high at the summit when we arrived. Just before departing the summit ridge we heard the wind howl and arrive from the west and traversing back across the meadow around 5pm was less pleasant than the way out. There was about 10 cm of new snow over 10 cm of cold snow from the Sunday storm. Sometimes a crust separated these layers and sometimes not. A shovel tilt test in some slightly wind loaded terrain near the summit showed these distinct layers well. We did not observe signs of instability when trying to trigger slabs or sluffs on small test slopes.