Quick report
Overall, stable conditions were observed today. We did not find fresh wind slab formation, only older lingering slabs that were unreactive. The snow stayed cool above 6000 ft, and given the overall lack of snow below this elevation, wet loose avalanches weren't very much of a concern. There are still very apparent persistent weak layers within the snowpack; however, they are healing well and showed little signs of instability today.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 20
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
The morning started out with a thin layer of clouds with the sun shining through. As the day progressed, the sky become fully overcast. The wind was moderate at upper elevation ridge lines and a very small amount of snow began to fall around 1pm. There was a dramatic temperature difference from lower elevations to upper. It remained below freezing above 6000'.
Snowpack
There is little snow on all aspects at lower elevations. We were able to start skinning around 4900' but coverage was still very thin until about 6000'. Lower and middle elevation snow below 6000' had obviously gotten warm yesterday and had a moderate refreeze overnight. As the day progressed, this same snow got warm again on south aspects and was fairly crusty and sticky by the end of the day. Above 6000', the snow remained cool and dry.
We dug a pit on a northeast aspect at 8300'. The depth of this pit was 70" (177cm). We found a 26" (66cm) deep slab of cohesive snow at the surface. Below this was a layer of small four finger (4F) hard facets sitting above a pencil (P) hard crust. We found slightly larger but harder (one finger (1F)) facets below the crust. The remainder of the snowpack to the ground consisted of rounding facets and soft, sugary basal facets at the ground. We performed an extended column test and got hard non-propagating results 13" (33cm) down within the slab (ECTN26). We performed a propagation saw test and got hard propagating results within the layer of facets above the crust (PST 87/100 End 77cm down).