Quick report
- Collapsing
- isolated
The last week of warm temperatures has contributed to a lot of rounding (healing) in the snowpack. We worked hard on a few steep, shallow test slopes on NE aspects on Hatch adjacent to Monday/Tuesday skier trigger activity with no results. **Video was from yesterday, 0123 but structure and stability were the same: ECTX (no propagation) in areas where more than 100cm of snow, still getting propagation where strong slabs are over weak (but slowly healing) bottom of the snowpack. ALL: No recent avalanches observed today. We experienced a few, small isolated whumphs. President's: No collapsing, cracking or whumphing observed on the tour up. Snowpit tests on E aspect , 29* HS 82cms where a ~55cm slab is sitting over well-developed depth hoar, which was showing some signs of rounding. ECTP21 and ECTP23, PST 95/100 END, CT7SC CT17SP. Layer of concern is still the depth hoar in this area. $1000: dug on multiple aspects (SE, E, NE). Experienced isolated whumphing, which was quiet and felt underfoot (did not propagate). 3,600' NE aspect 29* HS 90cm ECTP16 below a melt freeze crust over 2-4mm depth hoar/facets, 65cm down. On a SE aspect in 115cm, we got ECTX. Note that right-side-up pencil hard slabs are sitting on depth hoar here. We found a variety of crust/facet/depth hoar interfaces at the bottom ~25m of the snowpack. Also found some rounding facets/depth hoar in the bottom of our pits. Cross Hill: 3,900 SW aspect 20* HS varied 60-100cm. Generally, wind-affected snow on the surfaces . A variety of pits had propagation ECTP12 up to ECTP 29. PST 40/100 END. Failures were the interface of old, faceting buried crusts below wind-affected snow.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 40
- Cloud Cover
- clear
- Wind Loading
- none
- Rain Elevation
- N/O
- Recent Snowfall
- NO
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
The temperature was in the 40s in the sunshine today. Winds were calm to light out of the N/NW. Clear skies.
Snowpack
Snow surfaces varied by aspect. In valley bottoms and on polar aspects, we noticed some small, near-surface facets (bouncy grains) amongsts rounds and decomposing snow. Southerly aspects were thin and skied moist. Polar aspects were chalky, dry and skiing nicely with boot-deep ski penetration and shin to hip deep boot penetration. We observed a lot of strength in the mid and upper snowpack today with strong, cohesive, uniform, rightside up slabs. These all sat over a weak bottom snowpack. Our test results Our teams observed some signs of healing in the depth hoar and facets at the bottom of the snowpack, but it was inconsistent in our pits. Our propagating pit results were in contrast to a quiet snowpack that we traveled over.