Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 12/05/2019
Name: Evan Ross & Zach Kinler
Subject: Southerly Pow
Aspect: South, South West, West
Elevation: 9,700-11,800
Weather: Periods of heavy snowfall to no snow fall, all stacking up to about 9 to 12″ of new snow. Light wind, and mostly cloudy sky.
Snowpack: The new snow was nice and low density. We didn’t observe any significant issues on the old snow surface. At our upper elevation, the new snow had some slight drifting onto easterly facing terrain where it had some slight wind stiffening. A couple hand pits were able to pull very soft slabs on precipitation particles about 5-8cm’s above the old snow interface.
Southerly facing slopes had an HS varying 45-65cm’s. The crust on the ground made a great surface to ski on with new snow on top. The sun that made it through the clouds did start thickening up the new snow on some slopes.
Some lower angled slopes had a collapsible crust near the ground that produced a number of collapses. Also moving to westerly slopes and especially northwesterly slopes and the collapsible crust was more wide spread even on steeper terrain, or there was no crust and old weak snow near the ground. We skied some steep westerly slopes, but choose to route find around them on the way up. Shaded gullies and shaded portions of the slope behind tree fences were also avoided on steeper terrain.