Fresno

We went to check out the Summit Lake area today to get a sense of how much snow had fallen and how much of it was wind affected. The parking area at Manitoba had about an inch of new snow, and touring conditions on the summer trail were quite pleasant. We tracked the crust up to about 2250' on the SE face of Fresno, where we chose to dig our first snowpit. One of our goals for the day was to dig two snowpits on similar aspects—one with the crust and one without. We continued up the SE face to an elevation of 2750'. Many south-facing aspects showed significant evidence of wind as we gained elevation on the ridge. There were some isolated areas of breakable wind board, but the primary condition remained soft snow. 

At an elevation of 2750', we dug a second pit and noted a similar structure to the first, with the main exception being the absence of a knife-hard crust 20 cm down in the second pit. Both snowpits were in varying states of faceting, but overall the structure was similar. We descended Fresno via the east face above the highway and found soft, dry snow until we hit the crust line at around 2300'.

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Once we gained some elevation on the SE ridge of Fresno we experienced numerous whumpfs and small collapses. Wind affected areas above 2300' seemed particularly whumpfy. We also noted a small bit of cracking in front of our skis on a wind affected pocket at about 2500'.

We dug our first snowpit just below where the crust disappeared, at around 2,300'. The top layer of the first pit consisted of about 15 cm of decomposing and faceting snow, with 5 cm of new snow on top. In this pit, we found three layers of knife- to pencil-hard melt-freeze crusts, with facets above and below each layer. The facets were mostly fist to four-finger hardness and measured between 1–2 mm.

The second pit had a similar structure near the surface: 15 cm of decomposing and faceting snow with 5 cm of new snow on top. There was a pencil-hard crust about 30 cm down, followed by facets to the ground. The near-ground facets were slightly larger here (2–3 mm) and less consolidated.

Snowpit #1:
HS: 90 cm
Elevation: 2,250'
Aspect: 181° (S)
ECTN1 @ 80↓, ECTN11 @ 68↓, ECTN30 @ 40↓

Snowpit #2:
HS: 98 cm
Elevation: 2,750'
Aspect: 157° (SE)
ECTN11 @ 80↓, ECTN17 @ 65↓