Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
You would've thought there would be more wind slabs with all that blowing snow. Instead, I found extreme winds mostly stripping snow from exposed areas. I did find isolated fresh slabs sensitive to my weight downwind of tree fences.
Snow showers and wind definitely out-performed the forecast near the Sierra Crest where it was stormy with areas of intense blowing snow throughout the day. I checked some weather stations near, and immediately west of the Crest and they seem to have picked up around 2-4 inches of new snow today, which was unlikely in the morning weather forecast. More accessible areas closer to 395 were sunnier and had less blowing snow.
I got windburned and blown over. It was overall an unpleasant day in the mountains.
Fresh wind slabs were soft and thin, mostly downwind of tree fences near treeline. A few of these sent shooting cracks from my skis or small slabs broke out below me. I skinned through many of these and only a few cracked while others didn't seem to display slab characteristics. Just unreactive, drifted snow.Weather
- Air Temp
- Above Freezing
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Wind Loading
- moderate
- Recent Snowfall
- 1
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Gale-force west winds at all elevations and snow showers near the Sierra Crest outperformed the forecast. Blowing snow was moderate near and below treeline with some visible areas up high with intense blowing snow. Temperatures were above freezing but the wind chill was cold enough that I needed a windbreaker below 8000 ft. and I skinned in a puffy near treeline. Winds were strong enough that it was hard to stay on my feet when I wandered into exposed terrain or onto windward aspects. I got blown over several times.
Snowpack
A variety of hard wind crusts and sastrugi in near treeline terrain. Windward slopes were stripped mostly bare. Solar slopes were mostly melted out down canyon, though had coverage near the head of the lake. Below 8000 ft. a thin, unsupportable melt-freeze crust with moist melt-forms underneath transitions to pseudo corn on east and southeast aspects in the afternoon.
I dug on an east aspect at 9800 ft. in a (relatively) sheltered area where the snowpack wasn't too deep. I got several small column results in thin, partially faceted layers in the upper 1.5 ft. of the snowpack. These were sandwiched between firmer wind-packed layers. I also got sudden collapse results with hard force in the depth hoar near the ground.