South side Carson Pass- Frog Lake Cliffs and Elephants Back

We toured a loop on the south side of Carson Pass today, looking at northerly aspect terrain below treeline and near treeline terrain below Frog Lake cliffs and at above treeline terrain on the N-NE-E aspects of Elephant's Back. New snow amounts of 6 inches were observed in this area with wind deposits up to 2 feet deep. We avoided direct engagement with avalanche terrain larger than a small test slope. Evidence of wind sculpted texture on the snow surface was prominent on N-NE-E aspects above treeline.

Active drifting and wind loading continued above treeline today, especially after SW-W winds increase around midday. Test slopes revealed unstable wind slabs in areas without any weak faceted snow below the wind slab. Wind slabs were 1F hard at the surface and 4F hard at the base of the slab. A layer of F hard storm snow below the wind slab was acting as a non-persistent weak layer today.

Areas where we had observed weak faceted snow a week ago now have depth hoar at the bottom of the snowpack. We searched hard for areas where the 6 inches of new snow was a cohesive slab on top of the weak snowpack but could not find it today. The new snow was too low density and lacked sufficient cohesion to provide a slab today in the wind protected areas that hold the most weak, faceted snow. This is expected to change as the new snow settles and becomes more cohesive and slab-like. The weak faceted snow below it will continue to remain weak.

Cracking of wind slabs observed. No signs of instability observed on PWLs. PWL absent in the areas where we observed substantial wind slab. Where well developed PWL was present, the 15 cm of storm snow was F hard and lacked slab characteristics.