Mammoth Lakes Basin

I went for a tour in the lake basin today to get a read on how much new snow fell over the last couple days and to get an idea of the distribution of recent wind loading.

• Crews are working on clearing the roads, and I walked in tennis shoes from the tamarack trailhead to the Lake George parking area. Coverage was thin and discontinuous below 9200 feet or so.
• New snow totals are a bit hard to gauge because our recent extreme winds have done a good job of redistributing it. I measured about 2 to 6 inches on average for my tour today. In favorable catchment areas, I measured as much as 12 inches, and at lower elevations, a trace would be most accurate.
• I found a few areas with recent wind deposits. One finger slabs resting on four finger snow below. I would describe these areas as stubborn and shallow. Slab depths were about 4 to 6 inches.
• I don't quite pit on a wind-loaded terrain feature at about 10,100 feet on the north aspect. I saw propagation in an ECT test after two taps from the wrist, but I was unable to initiate an avalanche or shooting cracks when stomping around on the feature. 
• I observed that surface snow was becoming moist and heavy on sun-exposed slopes and at lower elevations by mid-afternoon. I also observed a thin melt freeze crust in several areas that likely formed during the day yesterday.

 

 

No recent avalanches or signs of instability were observed.