Date of Observation: 02/26/2021
Name: Zach Guy
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Snodgrass
Aspect: North East, South East
Elevation: 9500 – 11,000′
Avalanches: Shallow facet sluffing in steep terrain
Weather: Moderate winds, minimal snow transport. Cool temps. Few clouds.
Snowpack: Quick look at snow surfaces below treeline ahead of the next storm. Melt-freeze crusts start on east aspects (1 to 2 cm thick) and get thicker wrapping to due south (at least 8 cm thick). There were small grained facets below the crust, but not above. Northerly tilts have widespread small-grained near-surface facets, and some protected areas have small surface hoar growth.
One pit produced propagating results on all of the prominent weak layers in the lower half of the snowpack, but only after additional loading steps (about 35 hits). The 1/19 facets were down 80 cm and the 12/10 depth hoar down 110 cm, with a 1F midpack.
We rode several steep pitches where the snowpack is wind protected and uniform with no signs of instability.
Photos:
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- Quick pit on a NE aspect BTL showing stubborn results
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- Weak layers stacked on the snow surface
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- Small grained near surface facets
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- Crusts on the southern half of the compass.
