Harvey Pass

<p>Had a look in the snow at Harvey Pass today. Small opening in recently burnt forest at 1950 m, E aspect. 140 cm deep snowpack. The upper 90 cm is made up of the storm snow the area has received since mid-December. It is right side up and generally low density and not well settled. The lower layers of this storm snow showed signs of faceting. At 90 cm down is the Dec 15 surface hoar layer. Easily visible in the pit wall, crystals were standing up and 10-15 mm in size. Under the surface hoar is a 15 cm layer of weak facets (2-3 mm), 4 finger hardness. This is sitting on the late November crust which goes down to ground. The crust is starting to decompose into large faceted grains but is still pencil hardness. Not much in the way of test results. A couple of resistant planer shears at storm snow interfaces down 23 cm and 40 cm. The Dec 15 was stubborn with standard compression tests but popped in the easy to moderate range with a deep tap test. This is because the upper snowpack is still low density and has not stiffened up into a slab (yet) - the foot penetration was 100 cm... Temperatures were warmer at this elevation than in the valley (-6 at profile site). The warming trend will cause the snowpack to settle into a slab over the Dec 15 layer, making it more easily triggered from the surface. Need to watch this layer for a while. </p>