Avalanches: None
Weather: Clear, sunny, warm, no wind.
Snowpack: HS 25-40cm. Little bit of wind crust near ridge line and on a few rollers. Otherwise ski pen to ground and faceted snowpack
Avalanches: 3 natural wind slabs, all very small in size (~6″ deep) that likely failed last night on E and SE aspects above treeline. Â SS-N-R1-D1-I
Weather: Clear skies, light to moderate westerly winds. Light snow transport with small plumes off of peaks. Mild temps.
Snowpack: Recent storm snow was wind affected above treeline, drifts up to 6″ deep with shooting cracks.
IMG_5352Avalanches: none
Weather: warm, cloudy, calm, intermittent light snow
Snowpack: Beat. Pockets of sugar between frozen old tracks. 3 inches of new. Reminded me of a dead beaver I found last summer (see photo).
beaver-on-a-stickAvalanches: Facet sluffs seemed to be more of a concern than the new snow. We released two facet sluffs, one on the uphill and one on the way down (up to 40 deg slope). The sluffs did not break below the new snow interface except in areas where the skier broke the slab near the top of the pack.
Weather: Light snow was falling on and off throughout the morning with little to no accumulation through 1 pm. Calm with no evidence of wind during the storm.
Snowpack: Around 3 inches of new snow, very similar to what was seen in town. Snowpack near treeline was around 50-70 cm with a persistent slab structure. The slab was approx. 20-30cm with another layer of faceting crystals below and about 10-20 cm of large grain faceted crystals (looked close to fully developed I believe) below that.
Avalanches: We remotely triggered one small slide, about 30 feet wide, from about 75 feet away. It was a thin hardslab (3″ to 8″ thick) over fist hard facets, which gouged down deeper after failure. HS-ASr-R1-D1-O
Weather: Very light to no snowfall through the day, with no accumulation. Calm winds. Overcast skies.
Snowpack: 2″ to 3″ of new snow was a non-issue for storm instabilities. No snow transport. On westerly aspects near treeline, the snowpack was shallow and mostly faceted (2-3mm, Fist hard), with thin hardslabs or windcrusts capping the snowpack below the new snow in some of the more wind affected areas. We consistently found clean shears and propagating test results at this interface between 1F wind packed rounds and F facets, generally 10-20 cm deep. A few deeper pockets in isolated drifts.
IMG_5350
Weather: See profile. No precip yet.
Snowpack: See profile. No signs of instability.
profile-2Snowpack: Surface Hoar widespread in Anthracites. 2-3mm SH on the sunnies, 5-7mm SH on the shadies. Still barely supportive on lower angled slopes; facet wallowing on steeper terrain. The Dec 10th or 11th interface will likely be a player for a while to come!
Avalanches: 2 recent cornice falls off Owen and Purple ridgelines. No avalanches triggered from these events. Dropped a fairly large cornice and pryed off 10′ wide, 10″ windslab.
Weather: Low ceilings, flurries disapated into broken then partly cloudy skies as day went on. Steady 10-20mph west winds at ridgetop.
Snowpack: Generally stable conditions, even in steep and extreme terrain. no snow transport. Pits and probing indicated gradually increasing hand hardness with depth, HS 10-11000 averaged about 70cm, smow in NE cirque of Mount Owen averaged 150-300cm. One pit, CTN @ 11,000, E-facing, 35º.
Cornices on ridgetop are tenuous and rotting out at roots.
Avalanches: We triggered cracking and a very small windslab avalanche, 4″ deep x 15 feet wide, on several windloaded rollovers facing SE. Also some small cracks where the persistent slab structure was shallow (<20 cm) but stiff from wind.
Weather: Scattered, thin clouds. Moderate to strong westerly winds with light snow transport at ridgetop. Mild temps, no precip.
Snowpack: In summary, widespread weak and faceted snowpack on all aspects, with decaying and unreactive persistent slabs except in isolated, heavily windloaded features. See video
Below treeline: Snowdepth is less than 30 cm, entirely faceted, fist hardness on all but southerly aspects. Ski pen to the ground. Most southeast through southwest aspects are bare, or hold shallow stacks of melt-freeze crusts with varying degrees of faceting between crusts.
Near treeline on N to E aspects: Snowdepth ranged from 40 to 80cm, with fist hard facets in the lower half, and in windloaded areas, faceting slabs in the upper half (4F hardness). No results in snow pits. Ski pen was trap-door, nearly to the ground.
Above treeline on N to NW aspects: Predominately thin snowpack due to wind erosion, <60 cm, and faceting throughout, with ski pen near the ground. Â Isolated and discontinuous pockets of supportive snow with 1F to 4F faceting slabs over softer facets, similar to near treeline, but stiffer and thicker in the more heavily windloaded features. Â In one crossloaded gulley, the snowpack was 100 cm deep and showed propagating test results on depth hoar near the ground. Â On SE aspects ATL, we found thick, supportive crusts on steep (~40*) slopes, and an entirely faceted snowpack with thin, breakable midpack crusts as the slope angle lowered to mid 30’s. No slabs on this slope.
Above treeline, North aspect on Mt. Emmons
Near treeline, NE aspect on Mt. Emmons.
Avalanches: Just saw the previously mentioned point-releases.
Weather: Cold start at the TH in the morning but temps quickly warmed as we climbed out of the valleys. Saw multiple point-releases from E-facing rockbands. West and Southwest winds became gustier in the afternoon and moderate snow transport was occurring on ridgetops.
Snowpack: Started climbing up E-facing slopes below treeline and found surprisingly deep snowpack in areas (up to 120 cm). Around 15-20 cm of storm snow sat on a very firm crust and snow was easily sliding on this interface. No evidence of slabbing or cohesion in the storm snow at any elevation. The N-NE snowpack around 11,600 showed a burly pack averaging around 150 cm of snow. The lowest spot found was 70cm in a more wind affected area and the highest was over 220 cm. Storm snow was 20 cm and more in this area and elevation. Snowpack felt rather consolidated and uniform throughout. The exception was on more westerly facing slopes that received a stiff wind slab from recent NW winds. Below this was 5-15 cm of softer snow with another stiff slab below.
