Bishop Creek

Inside the ping pong ball today in Bishop Creek.

• A slope-scale collapse confirmed with a snow pit that showed basal facets that propagated in my test show that the persistent slab problem is active in areas outside of Mammoth that now have enough coverage to ride.
• If you are venturing into new areas, especially if you haven't seen an observation from ESAC staff for that zone, please let us know what you see! More information will translate into more accurate forecasts for the places you want to go.

I had a large, slope-scale collapse on a north-facing test slope. I skinned a little along the slope and found the cracks at the one edge of the slab that had collapsed. Too bad the light was too flat for pictures.

Below 9400 ft the snowpack in this area consists entirely of recent storm snow anchored by sagebrush and rocks. The upper snowpack was settling quickly. I started to find a layered snowpack, with our basal persistent weak layer, above about 9500 feet on northerly aspects.

I got propagation with moderate force on large depth hoar grains near the ground. This is the same layer that collapsed under me.