Public Observation

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

Dug a pit at noon at 5,600', NE aspect, about 150' climber's right of the standard skin track. HS = 140 cm.

Found 40 cm of new powder (fist) on a 5cm (rain?) crust, then 35 cm of slightly firmer snow (4F) resting on 2cm of finger hard crust, which might be the faceting folks have been talking about, but seems pretty rounded out by now. Below was finger-firm well-bonded snow.

Did an ECT and besides ECTN 7 & 17 in the top 40 cm of storm snow, didn't have any initiation or propagation, even when we were whaling on it. When we finally started prying the block off, it broke unevenly between the two crusts.

Overall travel conditions were good, a little sticky as the afternoon warmed up due to clearer weather than we expected (were out between 11am and 3pm). The top zone skied nicely, but as we descended below 5k' things started getting stickier, the rain crust started getting catchy, and we saw some small rollerballs starting to roll off ski-cuts.

Overall, the snowpack struck us as quite stable, and I'm curious to see how the incoming snow and cooldown affect things.