Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
We did a quick tour of Andesite this morning to check on our new storm snow, as well as how the old snow is reacting to the new loading. There was about 10" of new at the trailhead, giving way to 12"+ above 8000ft. There was a noticeable density inversion in the new snow, with a low-density layer of graupel about 6" down. Evidence of strong wind was obvious once we got near treeline, with wind-loaded and wind-affected snow found quite far from the ridgelines. Although wind slabs were prevalent, aggressive stomping on test slopes only produced minor cracking (photo #1). On a small terrain feature near the top of Andesite we were able to get a larger wind slab to fail only after undercutting it with a skin track (photo #2). This slab propagated approx 8' and was approx 1.5' thick, stopping after the initial propagation. Multiple quick pits showed the presence of faceted snow around the rain crusts deeper in the snowpack, but the lower snowpack is highly variable and we did not observe repeatable propagation on any specific layer in this location. There are still many shallow and exposed obstacles in this zone, although it is looking better than yesterday!
Weather
- Air Temp
- 22
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- moderate
- Recent Snowfall
- 35
Overcast skies gave way to light snow as the second small storm arrived in the area.