Quick report
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall
Wow. Probably some of the best skiing in the shortest amount of time I've experienced. I started my tour around 2pm under cloudy, calm skies with no precip. Around 3 clouds moved in and the precip and wind picked up. North aspects held bottomless powder and west and south aspects held surfy, fast snow. The most interesting aspect of my tour was what I saw in my snow pit. Under the ~40cm of new snow was a 5cm sun crust and below that was ~5cm of loose, faceted snow. During column tests, this layer was unreactive.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>The amount of new snow received appeared to vary greatly by aspect and terrain. Where I dug a quick pit, there was about 16" of new snow on top of the ice layer (W, 8900') but just a a couple hundred yards away in more sheltered, northerly terrain there was upwards of 26", some of which appear to be deposited from the winds. While north and shaded aspects don't have a sun crust from the past week, other aspects do and it makes a very uniform layer for the new snow to slide on. I could not get anything to give in my pit but this seems to be from the low density of the snow/not enough snow and low angle. I would expect that in steeper or more complex terrain and with more snow that the new snow will be more reactive. </p>