Date of Observation: 12/01/2016
Name: Dustin Eldridge
Aspect: North, North East, East
Elevation: 9500-11500
Avalanches: Saw a few old, blown-in crowns out in the distance of Baxter Basin and the north face of Cascade.
Weather: Day started relatively warm (10-15f) and continued to warm as the day went on. Partly cloudy skies began to creep in before the noon hour and by 1-2 skies became more overcast. Wind picked up a little bit in the afternoon but snow transport was very minimal. Definitely had a few instances of getting ‘greenhoused’, and saw some roller balls. Otherwise, sun’s impact on snow was limited.
Snowpack: Snowpack seems to be settling well. Ski pen is around 15-20 cm. Pack grew from 60-70 cm on E and NE slopes towards the valley floor to around 110-120 cm getting closer to treeline. Mostly right-side up, with a small crust-facet combo found in the basement of our NE facing pit at around 11,200 feet. CT21 and CT24, both Q1 shears at around 75 cm from the bottom. Weak layer was hard to identify from the pit wall, I imagine it was either a small layer of near-surface facets or surface hoar; did not notice much of a density change at the weak layer. Otherwise, no signs of instability noted.
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