Quick report
I drove to roughly 4700 ft, just past the Morrison Creek Campground, before hitting patchy snow that turned consistent around 5000 ft. Once on snow, travel was fast and firm over a burly, boot/ski supportable melt-freeze crust. Travel remained supportable all morning with some sun softening below 7000 ft on south aspects after 10 am. Friday's warming and strong sun left a crust on just about every aspect on the south side of Adams, even on the few patches of dryish, wind-blown snow that hid on more shady moraines and ridges. All in all, avalanche concerns were limited today, and firm, icy surfaces presented the most significant hazard in alpine terrain.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 40s
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Recent Snowfall
- 0
- Snow Avail For Transport
- none
The day started mostly cloudy around Mt. Adams. These started to filter out by late morning and partly cloudy skies prevailed into the early afternoon.
Snowpack
The snowpack was boot/ski supportable on all the aspects/elevations I traveled on today. Isolated pockets of wind-blown snow existed above 6000 ft, but these were tiny and often capped with a thin sun crust from warming on Friday. I suspect any thicker drifts would have been unreactive given the surrounding surfaces and signs of recent warming on Friday.
Digging down almost broke my shovel (not really, but you get the point). I found the 3/25 crust to be nearly 30 cm thick and knife-hard on a SE aspect at around 6500 ft. Below this crust, softer unconcerning melt forms exist.
The lower-elevation snowpack has receded significantly, and I didn't find continuous enough snow to skin until 4700 '(just beyond Morrison Creek Campground). However, the HS increases rapidly with elevation. By the time I reached the south climb trailhead around 5500 ft, I was measuring average depths of 100-120 cm. At 6500 ft, depths ranged from 270-290 cm along the south side climbing route.