Swimming at Shames

Shames delivers as it so often does. We wallowed our way through 70 cm of storm snow to investigate the January 5 surface hoar, facet, crust complex and how it is reacting to the continued loading. Our test pit at 1200m on a N aspect gave us hard but propagating results in an extended column test on a layer of large surface hoar down 60cm. This surface hoar layer was not visible to the eye in our observation wall and only upon testing did it reveal itself. Be sure to fully investigate this layer with more than just a glance as the surface hoar crystals are quit large and have large propagation potential. At this point the new snow is cold and lacks cohesion leading to our hard results but with more snow and rising temps on the way this layer is sure to become more reactive. We found the most reactivity on steep convexities and terrain loaded effected by the wind in lee features or cross loaded features. At this time these wind effected areas are not visually obvious on the surface so be cognizant of any features the SW/SE winds may have effected.