Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
Throughout most of the terrain I traveled the new snow was light and unconsolidated. The one exception was an east slope on The Dome where I observed cracking and was able to trigger a small Wind Slab.
Weather
- Air Temp
- -9
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- light
- Recent Snowfall
- 10
It was pretty much as nice as it gets. It was cold and snowing lightly all morning. The peak itself was obscured, but at lower elevations the sun would get just strong enough to cast shadows. The wind was calm low in the terrain and Light from the north at ridgetops. I observed previous windloading on east slopes at The Dome, and on Paulina Peak I observed the north wind actively moving snow off of north slopes (again light blowing snow).
Snowpack
Throughout most of the terrain I found 6-8 inches of snow from the last week over a very stout crust. The uppermost snow is very light and unconsolidated. There is a bit of a weakness above the crust, but for the most part it didn't seem to be weak enough to produce avalanches, or test results indicative of avalanches. The one exception was beneath the wind loaded snow I found in The Dome. This was definitely the exception.
I dug to the ground on an east slope of Sand Butte at 6,800 ft. There was 155 cm. of snow. I could still find basal facets at the ground but they didn't constitute a uniform layer and seemed to exist more in clumps based upon the vegitation underneath. I didn't find any other persistent weak layers in this snow profile.