Silver Peak

We toured into Silver Peak today and found a usable snowpack on N-NE-E aspect terrain above 7,300'. PWL structure was widespread on the N-NE-E aspects we traveled between 7,200' and our highpoint of travel 8,200'. In this particular area today, the PWL observed was unreactive. The big concern is for failure of the weak upper snowpack structure with additional new snow loading on Saturday.

We stomped on and ski cut nearly every wind loaded test slope we could find, including under the cornice area along the N ridge with no wind slab failure results. We saw one recent size D2 wind slab avalanche off in the distance (see attached avy ob) that likely occurred on Jan 3.

One D2 wind slab avalanche viewed from afar.

We observed PWL structure in the upper snowpack. Within the top 1.5 feet of the snowpack there were two prominent facet layers. One was at the base of the recent new snow, just above a very thin crust. The second was a thicker, more developed layer sandwiched between the thin crust just below the recent new snow and a thick, stronger rain crust below. ECTN results and PST SF results in two test pits dug on N aspects at 7,600' and 8,000'.

We dug numerous hand pits on N-NE-E aspect terrain between 7,200' and 8,200' and found that this PWL structure was widespread. We repeatedly looked for surface hoar in our hand pits, but only found it in one location on a N aspect at 7,200'.