Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 12/18/2018
Name: Steve Banks & Zach Kinler
Subject: SE-S-SW-W NTL
Aspect: South East, South, South West, West
Elevation: 12,000
Avalanches:
No new avalanches observed, though several shallow soft wind slabs were noted, presumably from the little storm late last week.
Weather: Warm temps around -5 C all day. A thick cloud band passed by late morning, then mostly sunny until 3 pm when clouds built in again. Calm winds increased in the afternoon with gusts into the 20’s and a little moving snow.
Snowpack: We went looking for Persistent Slab structure today and had a harder time finding it on Southerly slopes. Where we did find it it was unreactive to our snowpack tests. Southeast and South facing slopes had a noticeable lack of weak snow at the ground, while Southwest to West slopes still showed this PS structure to some degree. Overall HS ranged from 110 to 70 cms with areas above treeline being in the 20 to 60 cm range.
Non of our snowpack tests produced a result.
Surface conditions are a mixed bag and will be interesting in the future. South slopes had multiple sunbursts in places, while SW had a crust on top and a softer crust just below. All these crusts had small facets above and below. 2mm Surface hoar and 1mm Surface Facets were noted on all aspects and elevations traveled, though the sun and light winds were taking a toll on them.
Photos:
