Quick report
Today was a pleasant day on Peagravel Ridge- calm winds, moderate temperatures, and good visibility. I began the day with the goal of seeking out wind slabs and testing their reactivity but I did not observe any wind textured snow below my highpoint of 6000' feet. I quickly became more focused on investigating the stability of the recent storm snow, which was cohesive enough to isolate as a block but light enough for good ski quality.
There were a few layers of interest above the February Crust, most notably was a small ribbon of weak snow 14 inches below the surface. Two snowpit tests resutled in sudden clean fractures within this layer. The other interesting layer was a 2 inch band of low density snow with poor bonding quality sitting on top of February Crust and below another thick crust.
I observed a small avalanche crown across Heather Canyon but I could not get close enough to observe the layer that it failed on. I suspect this avalanche happened on Friday.
I observed a small slab avalanche crown and evidence of a small loose avalanche on a SE aspect below treeline.Weather
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- none
- Recent Snowfall
- 5
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
There was a storm cloud sitting around 7,000 that obscured the upper mountain. Calm winds. Light snow began at 12:00.
Snowpack
I dug a snowpit at 5275' on an eastern aspect of Peagravel Ridge in a small low angle clearing. I found two weak layers within the top 28 inches of our snowpack in this spot. The upper weak layer was a thin ribbon of weak snow 14 inches below the surface. Two snowpit tests yielded clean fractures across this layer with moderate loading. The storm snow above this layer is a cohesive slab that I was able to easily lift off of the column after the layer had failed. The lower weak layer is 19 inches below the surface and it is 2 inches of low density snow with poor bonding qualities. This weak snow is sitting on top of the early February ice crust.