Quick report
- Aspect
- Northwest
- Red Flags
- Cracking, Collapsing, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 2804 m
Obvious rime crusts present on most open terrain at ~9000-9500'. Melt-freeze crusts accompany rime crusts on southerly terrain making for poor skiing conditions. Sheltered terrain (W-N-NE) at >~9000' still contains softer faceted snow near the surface making for decent skiing. Intermittent snow showers (heavy for small periods of time) during the day dropped 1-2" to soften things up, although dust-on-crust conditions persisted on exposed terrain.
Multiple audible collapses occurred during descent off of Pioneer ridge (N-NE aspect, 9800') near top of fat city condos on a low angle (29deg) slope. A few visible cracks indicated that propagation may have occurred on facets below a poorly developed rime crust ~ 10cm down from the surface, indicating obviously instability that may step down to well documented weak layers lower in the snowpack with additional load.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>As part of a group of students taking a level 2 class, we dug two separate pits on W & NW facing terrain at ~9180' in a sheltered area on the lower portion of scott's backdoor. </p> <p>Pit #1: W aspect, HS 80-95 cm, CTH(22) at the top of November facets 45 cm down, ECTX, PSTEND (25/100) on same faceted layer.</p> <p>Pit #2: NW aspect, HS 65 cm, CTE(8) 48 cm down ~5 cm below the top of November facet layer, PSTEND (50/100) starting at same layer but stepping up to the top of November facets ~43cm down (see pic), additional CTN. </p> <p>Throughout the day only light winds noted on the PC ridgeline ~9800, calm at lower elevations. No significant wind transport of new snow seen. Some hard wind slabs of older snow observed directly below Pinecone ridge on N-NE facing terrain. </p>