Quick report
Temperatures were warm down low. Below 8,500' snow surfaces felt the heat and there will be a crust tomorrow, especially on solar slopes. Coverage down low is slowly improving, but many obstacles still exist. But up high, coverage is good.
No signs of instability in the 4-6" of new snow from last night. We noted some wind affect above 9,600' with recent shallow drifts on leeward slopes, but no snow transport while we were there.
No shooting cracks or collapsing.
Weather
- Air Temp
- low 30s
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- none
- Recent Snowfall
- 4-6"
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Warm and humid day. Light winds with moderate gusts on the ridgeline at 10,000'. Calm conditions below. The sky was mostly obscured with occasional periods of clearing. Temperatures were warm and affecting the snow surface below 9,000'. There was little to no accumulation during our tour.
Snowpack
Snow heights ranged from 6-8ft (200-250cm) above 9,000’.
We dug 2 east facing pits. No propagation was observed in either pit. At 9,700' we found no Christmas crust and a stable right side up snowpack within the top meter of snow.
Our second pit was around 9,000'. Here the Christmas crust was present, down 45cm, about 7cm thick, and pencil hard. The 1mm grains above the crust showed some signs of faceting, though not well developed.