Lundy Canyon

Despite cloud cover and warm temperatures, snow surfaces/the snowpack remained mostly dry where I traveled today. I traveled from 7800' - 10100' on east - north - west aspects looking at surfaces and upper snowpack structure in anticipation of a large loading event later this week.

• Many slopes hold soft snow, or soft snow beneath a melt freeze crust, or beneath a wind affected surface. This snow is from last week's storm, and is comprised of decomposing precip particles and facets.
• Crust/facet combos exist below the soft snow, and where the crusts are knife hard it was easy to initiate small, dry loose instabilities above the crust. This was the case on steep, sheltered, northerly aspects.
• Height of snow in this area was observed up to 150 cm.
• Depth hoar and fist hard snow exist at the base of the snowpack in most areas beneath a 4F - P hard slab that exists below the crust/facet combos.
• Of note, some shallow E facing aspects held well developed melt-forms at the surface. 

 

Wet Loose avalanches observed in the distance in above treeline terrain on a South facing slope, but the time of occurence is unknown. See avalanches. I was able to instigate small, isolated loose dry avalanches in steep, protected northerly terrain below/near treeline around 9500' - 10,000'.

I dug for snowpack structure in a few places. I spent the most time in a pit @ 10100', NNE, near tree line. Here, I found an area with no crust/facet combo from 3/2. The new snow from last week is decomposing precip particles and facets, while the older snow beneath is beginning to round. No instabilities observed on this layer today in this location. Focus was to results lower down. 

I got the following test results: 

• CT 22 SP @ 87 cm down, x3, on 2-5 mm depth hoar below a decomposing melt freeze crust
• ECTX x 2
• ECTP30 @ 100 cm down (same layer as CT 22) 
• PST 17/100 END @ 94 cm down (same layer as CT22) 
• PST with no results