Quick report
I took the skis for a walk on Saturday to replace a damaged cable at the Kip Rand weather station. It's a helpful resource for temperatures and winds especially. My biggest hazards of the day were 2-3 creek crossings and an ice rink surface snow. I employed the snowplow technique often.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- none
- Rain Elevation
- 9000' +
- Recent Snowfall
- 0
- Snow Avail For Transport
- none
Mild and warm day.
Snowpack
Intermittent shallow snow up to 6000' on southern slopes. Between 6000-7400' on S and W slopes, I found an average of 20-30cms or 8-12" of snow. It was moist all the way to the ground. There was a 3cm 1.5" rain crust on the surface, which softened/corned up with daytime warming on solar slopes.
Avalanche
Roughly a dozen small (D1-D1.5) wet avalanches observed on Cornucopia peak (8500' S, visible from town) and on Red Mtn (8-9500' S-SE). These ran during the rain event the second week of December. No photos since I didn't have a good zoom lens.