Quick report
We went up the Bishop Creek drainage to dig a snow pit near the Sawmill weather station and get a sense of the snowpack and surfaces.
- We saw no recent avalanches and experienced no signs of instability.
- The snowpack and surfaces vary by aspect. Northerlies are faceted, while solar slopes are covered in a hard melt-freeze crust that thaws midday.
- It was calm and clear all day. Temperatures were in the 20s in the shade of the morning and quickly rose to the mid-40s.
Weather
- Air Temp
- Rising to the 40s
- Cloud Cover
- clear
- Wind Loading
- none
- Recent Snowfall
- 0
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Clear, calm high pressure remains the name of the game.
Snowpack
In general, there is more consistent snow cover in the Bishop Creek drainage than in the northern-most reaches of the forecast area.
Sunny aspects had thick, hard melt-freeze crusts (K hard and up to 8 cm thick) that thawed midday. On slopes facing south, the snowpack was about half the depth of that on northerly slopes. At 10,000 ft. HS on south was 24 cm, and 62 cm on north.
Northerly slopes held a deeper, faceted snowpack. The top 2/3 of the snowpack consisted of facets, as well as the base of the snowpack in some areas. Our snowpit, on a flat surface, showed basal facets rounding and gave us no test results.
East and west-facing slopes near and below treeline had very thin breakable crusts about 1 cm thick.
Exposed and high-elevation westerly slopes had been scoured by wind.
Open lakes and creeks are allowing surface hoar to grow on shady, sheltered slopes.