Quick report
This was a field day to collect some snowpack data in the Baker area and monitor the ongoing melting.
All of the snow that we moved through was either icy and refrozen or wet and mushy. We did not experience any cracking or collapsing.Weather
- Snow Avail For Transport
- none
Variable cloud cover on this warm, energetic spring day. Lots of direct sun in the morning, with cloud cover increasing late in the morning. There were a few large, dark-bottomed cells that rolled through to our north and south throughout the day. Some precipitation was visible in the air when we were close to these cells, but no significant precipitation was observed in the Baker drainage. 48 F when we got to the lot at 1030, 48 F when we left at 1815.
Snowpack
The entire snowpack is holding lots of water vapor and some liquid water on many/most slopes. We dug at 8,900' on a SE aspect above the Baker summer trailhead and found a snowpack riddled with crusts and wet snow. There was no dry snow. The crusts still had quite a bit of strength and iciness, it took a fair amount of effort to dig and saw through this snow. Water was pooled above each of the crusts, with fairly narrow bands of wet snow above. In places, there was enough water in the snow above the crusts to be able to squeeze water out of it.
The most concerning crust+wet moosh in the snowpack was located near the middle (about 70cm down in a 120-130cm snowpack). This is likely the 2/1 weak layer, which is the most prominent mid-winter crust in the snowpack (remember the wet slab cycle we had at the end of January?...). I would not be shocked to see wet slabs failing on this, but I think we would need to be pumping a lot more water into the snowpack to make that happen. My confidence in this is not high, but it seems like a fairly reasonable conclusion given the amount of water that we have already pumped into the snowpack. With that said, it is pretty easy to justify stepping back during periods of uncertainty relating to wet snow. It makes it a little easier that the ski and riding quality are decreasing.
The snowpack remained largely supportable to our sleds throughout the day, even off trail. On some steeper solar aspects where the pack was thin, we were punching through the crusts toward the ground. Skiing had a slo-motion nature to it; just initiate your turn and slowly follow your skis wherever they want to go.
We did not directly encounter upper elevation dry snow, but based on the temperatures today we likely did some melting of the snow surface on these slopes.
Avalanche
There are lots of small, wet loose avalanches to be found. It is hard to tell exactly when they happened, but based on other observations the majority of these likely occurred on Monday (4/8).