Noisy Basin

We took a quick tour to Noisy Basin to check on new snow totals and to get above 7000 feet in elevation.

• At 7000 feet, we found the atmospheric river crust which was buried on December 7th. Below the crust, the snow was moist with basal facets.
• We were surprised by a lack of wind-affected surface snow. 
• Snow depths at mid-elevations ranged from 115 to 130 cm (45 to 50 inches). The brush is not covered.
• As the day progressed, warm temperatures caused trees to shed snow and our sled back to the truck included some dirt riding.
• In the parking area, there were bear prints. They aren't hibernating just yet. 

We observed a few isolated sluffs of 2 inches of soft, overnight snow that appeared to slide on the freezing rain crust. No cracking or collapsing was observed.

We had no propagating results in our snowpit. 

• 6800 feet, N, HS: 125 cm, ECTX.
  • Atmospheric River crust is buried 50 cm below the surface.  
  • 50 cm of snow since December 6th.
  • Multiple layers were observed. A layer of graupel (40 cm below the surface), two 2 cm- thin rime crusts, intermixed with the top 30cm of recent soft snow.
  • Our snowpit test revealed that the snowpack was mostly unconsolidated snow which did not have slab properties.