Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
Castle Lake has received about 14 inches of snow (settled) since February 15th. Despite the recent snow, the snowpack remains shallow, especially on solar aspects. Visible and shallowly buried obstacles are abundant. Signs of instability were limited to minor cracking on isolated wind-drifted features and very small natural dry loose sluffs in extreme, rocky terrain. However, a propagating test result on the old/new snow interface indicated the potential for avalanches. No obvious graupel layers were observed within the snowpack, except for today's graupel on the snow surface. This new graupel may become a weak layer with future loading events this week.
Minor cracking on steep, wind-drifted features.Weather
- Air Temp
- 30
- Cloud Cover
- obscured
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Recent Snowfall
- 30
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Light snow and graupel showers throughout the tour. Obscured visibility with whiteout conditions at times. Light winds.
Snowpack
On a north aspect at 6,100 feet, total snow depth measured about 32 inches (80cm) with two prominent crusts - one down 12 inches (30cm) below the recent snow and the second down 17 inches (42cm) above moist faceted snow.
On a northeast aspect at 6,400 feet (33-degree slope), we recorded an ECTP13 down 12 inches (30cm) on the new/old snow interface.