Quick report
Cold temperatures were keeping the snowpack locked up in the Mammoth Area today. The wind chill up high was frigid.
North winds were stripping typical alpine start zones.
Surfaces are variable, though predictable firm turns can be found in alpine couloirs, and a few facet pow turns can be had in the trees.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 20s and Teens
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- moderate
- Rain Elevation
- NA
- Recent Snowfall
- Trace
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Cloud cover dissipated mid-morning. Strong northeast winds were stripping typical start zones and blowing the snow onto southwest-facing slopes above treeline. Temps were wintry, the windchill was bitter cold.
Snowpack
Surfaces:
- There's a melt-freeze crust on all aspects up to 9600 ft. It's thinner and breakable on northerly aspects, especially above 9000 ft. There are dry facets under the crust on all aspects.
- Above 9600 ft. in sheltered trees: 5-25 cm of 2 mm surface facets. The top 20 cm of the snowpack has settled and is firmer, generally 4 Fingers hard.
- Exposed near treeline and alpine terrain has a variety of wind effects, almost all faceting on northerly aspects. Sastrugi; old, hard, unreactive wind slabs; Pencil-Knife hard crust; it's all up there.
- Solar aspects above treeline are mostly bare ground, and north wind was blowing facets onto those slopes, creating dunes and very hard, unreactive drifts - no really wind slabs.
- Solar aspects near and blow treeline hardly thawed today.
Structure:
- I found a spot at 9600 ft. on a northeast aspect below treeline, where snow depth was around a meter deep, to test the layers around the 1/1 crust.
- There were 1 mm facets above the crust, which was 40 cm below the surface.
- The majority of the snowpack above the crust was facets (no slab).
- ECTX
- I was hunting. The average snow depth at this elevation was between 130 and 170 cm.