Quick report
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>No major red flags today. PWL still sorta lurks up high (more on that below). There were the usual solar point releases yesterday in the high southerly terrain (Willard, Island Peak, Black Canyon), but all D1-1.5 and nothing to write home about. Nothing had released on the headwall.</p>
Dug at 8700ft on a north facing slope, not too far below the saddle. Snow depth was 160cm with F/4F on top from this week's snowfall. Below this was 1F wind slab layers, sitting atop a monster 30cm New Year's crust pile, about 70cm down. Under this was 15cm of 4F/1F and then the thinner Christmas crust. Below that was damp mixed forms to the ground, where I struggled to find something that looked faceted enough for me to be concerned about.
Got ECTN28 down 70cm at a wind layer interface. Bonus taps, fist pounding, and shovel shearing the whole test column with a fair amount of effort eventually got some snow to move on the crust, with a non-planar fracture. Given the lack of natural activity up high plus what I understand to be pretty innocuous inbounds results with control work at local resorts, I'm leaning in the direction of possible PWL dormancy at the moment.
Photo 1: snow pit
Photo 2: looking across the Cutler headwall.
Snowpack
The road has been groomed, so continuous travel on skis from the trailhead is currently possible. Snow depths increase with elevation; just add 15-25cm to Gagne's 20260106 to account for the 20260107-08 snowfall. Everything below 7000ft is still pretty rough; coverage is a far greater hazard than avalanches. Things start looking pretty decent by 7500ft, and above 8000ft coverage facilitates travel without major concerns (but still low tide).
As for the surface snow itself, there's a surface hoar band from roughly 7600-8500ft. Grains in the morning were pretty widely distributed and were about 0.3-0.5cm. On the descent in the afternoon, the sun was addressing most of this, but there was still SH in the more protected zones. Given the forecast low wind and cold high pressure, it will be interesting to see if this SH persists enough on the surface to have an impact in the mid elevations when the next snowfall arrives.
Otherwise, surface snow was largely preserved powder, with some wind-affected on top, but even that was still fairly soft in the mid elevations. Upper elevations were much more wind affected, as they are wont to be, so no surprise (or SH) there. There was a bit of rime, though, with plenty of leftover evidence on the high trees. There was a graupel layer at all elevations at the interface between the storm snow from this week.