Quick report
We saw no signs of instability as we traveled today. It warmed rapidly throughout the day, creating variable snow conditions on the surface with that breakable crust on sunnier aspects.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 30 to 40
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Overcast to mostly cloudy all day with light to moderate winds out of the west. Temperatures started in the teens at the trailhead, but by midday, it was well into the 30s F.
Snowpack
South, southwest, and west aspects have multiple temperature crusts in the top 30cm of the snowpack, with combinations of FC (facet) forms and DF (decomposing/fragmented particles) in between each layer. The surface crust was breakable and had a fine layer of SH (surface hoar) on top.
We dug a pit at 9100 on an ENE aspect in a heavily wind-loaded area just above a start zone HS 205. There were two layers of concern, one 40cm below the surface and the other 60cm below the surface. The upper layer of concern is small FC (facets) that are developing near a density change in this wind-loaded portion of the snowpack, ECTP16. The lower layer of concern is buried surface hoar, ECTP23. We also did a PST on this surface hoar layer, 35/100 End.