Table Mtn - Bishop Creek

I traveled on Northerly aspects of Table Mountain today in the Bishop Creek area today and found a variety of surface conditions and observed no signs of instability. The most notable observations I made today include the prevalence of surface facets on shaded slopes, relatively quiet weather al, be it fairly windy, and minor amounts of wind-transported snow.

 

 

I observed some cracking within recent wind deposits on small test slopes near treeline. Nothing super concerning but notable. Fresh deposits were about 4-5" thick and reactive, while older deposits were unreactive. Distribution was isolated where I was today, and I observed only minimal amounts of blowing snow. some plumes at upper elevations were noted on my drive south. No other signs of instability were observed on my tour today.

• HS ranged from around 50 cm at lower elevations and closer to 100cm above 9000'. In some favorable areas, the pack was likely deeper, and on solar aspects or windward slopes coverage is very thin or slopes are completely bare. I poked around quite a bit throughout my tour, and the deepest HS I measured was 110 cm.
• Shady slopes held loose dry surface snow at all elevations. Surface faceting has been productive over the last few nights of cold and clear weather.
• Sun-exposed slopes were fairly crusty today. I didn't note any wet surface snow on my tour, and I suspect the winds aided this trend. It is worth noting that I didn't get a good sample of any true solars.
• I dug in on an NE aspect at 10,000' and found a fairly straightforward snowpack with a good bit of faceting throughout and some well-formed basal facets on the ground.  I observed a sudden collapse failure with moderate force in my compression test, but I did not see propagation in my ECT. (see profile for more info)