Weather
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
It was snowing lightly all day. The wind was Moderate from the west and snow was blowing onto east facing slopes.
Snowpack
Finally there is enough snow to stray a bit from the roads and trails! In a glade at 7000 ft. I measured 125 cm. at 7000 ft. on a mostly north slope. Everywhere I rode the surface snow was cohesive. Test slopes seemed pretty unreactive or at least stubborn (I couldn't trigger an avalanche). I saw new cornice and wind slab growth (picture), but again the few wind loaded start zones that I traveled through seemed stubborn.
Today I wasn't able to find the surface hoar layers that we've mentioned in the last few observations; my suspicion though is that the sites I chose to dig in weren't quite sheltered enough from the wind for that surface hoar to have been preserved. I did find weak faceted snow in the 15 cm. or so beneath all of the new snow. In some cases this weak snow was adjacent to a crust and very weak (see video). It's important to note that result was in one snow profile. I dug another 400 ft. higher and the layers were much different. There was still some faceted snow in the higher profile, but it wasn't nearly as weak. I toured for a couple of hours and didn't experience any of the collapsing or whumphing that we usually associate with a persisitent slab avalanche problem. You might be saying "That's confusing! What's the takeaway?"
My takeaway: There are some persistent weak layers deep in the snowpack. They aren't everywhere and they aren't particularly reactive. On a steep slope you could trigger an avalanche that is bigger than you might expect from simply observing the surface snow. These layers seem especially variable this year likely because of the high rain/snow line from early winter. There were several storms where it rained at the lake and snowed at the Paulina summit.
***Our weather station with snow depth sensor is up and running. Soon it will be easy to access from our weather station page, but in the meantime here is a link: https://mesowest.utah.edu/cgi-bin/droman/meso_base_dyn.cgi?stn=PLPLO&unit=0&time=LOCAL&product=&year1=&month1=&day1=00&hour1=00&hours=24&graph=0&past=0&order=1 ***