Quick report
- Aspect
- North
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall, Rapid Warming
- Elevation
- 2774 m
- Slope Angle
- 27°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>instabilities settling out rapidly, but wind loaded summit ridges could be a completely different story. </p>
Buried surface hoar nearly 5' down
A look at the upper layers
we had failures on this layer both with shovel tilt @ 14, and ECT at 28, you can see the graupel squirt out with propagation, Q1 shear, feel this will heal with time, overall feeling more confident with the stability, certainly one of the strongest (ie deepest) snowpack we have seen on the Plateau in several years
They brought out the big guns on the road
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Seems each wave of new snow began as graupel, with at least 3 different layers we found, with some failures on second lower layer, these will likely heal with continued warm temps. A very stout 2" rain crust is at 160 cm from the ground and buried weak layer of surface hoar now nearly 5' down, likely no longer a player. </p> <p>we did not get much of a look at higher terrain, but there have to be large cornices from big wind during storm. People and machines were amassing on the open road to Schofield as we were headed home this afternoon. </p>
Pack is settling out nicely, very supportable, access to area has been difficult, no parking and with gate closed over summit to Huntington Canyon, our options were limited, seems plow were able to get road to and from mines toward Schofield cleared, we were lucky to find a place to pull off in the usual parking spot for Electric Lake, plows, snowcat, and giant rotary plow worked on the road all day long and by early afternoon had it widened and mostly back to pavement. Ski penetration was only 6"-8", and about a foot with boots, upper pack right side up, a variety of layering, with graupel evident, but warm temps are settling it out very quickly. No new activity noted on this side of Skyline, but wet rollers and sluffs were starting as we lost elevation on the way home, direct heating from sun could be an issue on the weekend. We had no cracking, collapses, or other evidence of instability, but limited activity to lower angle slopes.