Quick report
Off-duty ski tour to move through terrain wtih visitors and get eyes on how the snowpack changed during the meltdown since last week / how snow is transitioning at upper elevations.
Moving through much terrain, no cracking or collapsing observed.Weather
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Snow Avail For Transport
- none
Mostly cloudy skies, with predominantly high thin cloud cover directly overhead for the majority of the late morning, with lower thicker clouds out in the Smokys. In the early afternoon, these clouds shifted E overhead and brought with them an uptick in S/SW winds from light in the AM to moderate. Past wind effect present but little to no SAFT in the majority of the terrain traveled / viewed. Very small amounts of dry wind-blown chalky snow were available for transport on northerlies.
Snowpack
Since last coming up here 5 days ago (Sunday) in the middle of the meltdown, surfaces have changed quite a bit. On solars, small runnels have formed from meltwater draining from the snowpack, with more alpine solars having various undulations due to the heat. MFcr was present on all aspects at lower elevations even when leaving the truck near 11:00 due to the shift away from our warm, high-pressure period. Colder temperatures kept this crust more supportable in the Boulders than during outings in the days past, with the top only 4-5cm of the snowpack below being moist — a significant decrease from 10-15cm and 15-20cm during other days out in the Boulders during the warm spell.
Protocorn has begun to form on solar aspects. While it takes a much longer period to enter a full corn cycle, things were well done enough at the lower end of upper and all middle elevations during our timing to ski well. Upper elevation solars are still entering their transition a bit more slowly, and are not quite there yet. With timing and coverage considerations, we were able to comfortably enter terrain I would not have touched during the meltdown. With the way things cooked both on solars and ambiently on northerlies, I would imagine we are heading for low danger in this zone soon — acknowledging there is some weather on the way that will add some surficial instability considerations.
Avalanche
No new avalanche activity observed. Only avalanches observed were old large slides in the SW & NW bowls.