Quick report
My partner and I toured around in below tree line terrain near Pickett Peak today. Snow conditions in general on this north aspect were cold and dry, except for areas receiving direct solar radiation. Moist and wet conditions, and even melt freeze crust existed on these solar aspects. Along the way up my partner, and I discovered a very isolated meadow that had large potato chip size surface hoar growing in abundance. We stopped to take a few photos. On the rest of the ascent up to 8100' we did observe surface hoar on shaded aspects throughout the day. We stopped and dug a pit and investigated the January 1st rain crust. Both formal tests, compression and PST, had no remarkable results on this layer despite there being small facet formation underneath this crust. On our way down snow conditions remain soft and cold through the trees, and we did not observe any sort of instability along the way.
Weather
- Air Temp
- Above freezing
- Cloud Cover
- clear
- Wind Loading
- none
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Calm clear day with light east winds in open terrain. Temperatures remained above freezing throughout the day
Snowpack
I dug a pit at 8100' on a N aspect. Surface hoar was present at this location at the top of the pit. Near surface facets are starting to grow below that. It was approximately 50cm down to the January 1st crust. Facet formation below the crust was present, but was non-reactive in my compression test or PST both having no remarkable results. HS was 130cm at this location.