Quick report
We toured out to points NW of Incline Peak today. We looked at some recently formed wind slab test slopes along the ridgetop and old PWL layers on a shaded NNW aspect near 9,600'. Neither the wind slabs nor the deeper old snow layers revealed concerns for instability in this area. Wind slabs appeared well bonded the to rain crust below. We selected an upper elevation, shallow snowpack area to look at the old snow layers. We saw continued evidence of rounding of the old Dec 12 nsf layer and of the old chains of DH basal layer.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- none
- Recent Snowfall
- 18
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
Inversion conditions mixed out by late morning. Increasing high level cloud cover around midday, especially to the north.
Snowpack
Significant strength gains observed for the old Dec 12 PWL and continued rounding of old chains of DH at the base of the snowpack. No indications that these layers were stressed by the incremental loading Dec 20-29. No signs of faceting (yet) around or in between the rain crusts in the upper snowpack. The midpack is quite thick and strong in this area with the ability to contribute to significant anchoring.