Quick report
We travelled through terrain between Kangaroo Ridge and Silver Star Mountain. Most upper elevation snow is wind affected and varies from a subtle wind skin to full on wind board, with some north facing slopes holding up. Mid elevations closer to 6500' saw better skiing conditions. Lower in Willow Creek below 6200', in the inversion, surface hoar has grown to 5mm. The most recent avalanche signs are from Saturday the 13th or earlier. Occasional moderate wind gusts moved light amounts of snow on ridges, and more wind transport coud be seen on peaks further West.
Minimal cracking in the wind affected snow. No releases in small test slopes.Weather
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- light
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Mostly overcast with skies clearing at times to the west. Light to moderate winds at ridgelines mostly coming from the west and southwest. Inversion with warmer air from the west and cold air in the eastern valleys.
Snowpack
I dug two pits; one on a NE at 6900' just north of Silver Star, and another on a SSW aspect at 7200' near Kangaroo Ridge.
The height of snow at mid and upper elevations varies from 150 to 220cm
The surface snow varies with wind affect. Some areas are soft with good skiing quality. Other areas have a grabby wind skin or even stiff supportive wind board. Eastern valleys in the inversion have some surface hoar growth below 6200'
The top 30-50cm of snow has fallen since January 8th and sits on the 1/8 interface. There is a subtle step down in hardness right at this interface. This interface fails under moderate shear in shovel shear tests and produces sudden planar results in compression tests after medium force taps. (CTM 12 SP @ 31cm down)
Go another 30-40cm down and you're at the late December crust. This may have been in play in some of the avalanches of the last week. It produced a middling result in a propagation saw test (PST 45/100 END at 71cm down)
Below this, in the lower snowpack, you can still clearly see the mid December crust sandwich. There are some soft faceted snow within this, but at least in one progagation saw test did not produce alarming results (PST 80/100 END at 98cm down).
Pencil hard snow to the ground below this.
Extended column tests at both sites did not produce propogating results, but some arrested fracturing at the 1/8 interface.
In general, this deeper snowpack around WA pass and Silverstar is denser and less dramatically facetted than the shallower snowpack further east.