Observation: NWAC Forecaster

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Weather Summary

Warm, humid and still. Felt like late spring.

Snowpack Observations

The snowpack depth is highly variable, as usual for this area. Lots of exposed volcanic rock, and in other places where wind has been creating thicker patches of snow it was well over 100cm deep. The road has a handful of bare patches to ride through from the SnoPark, and probably won't be in shape for snowmobile access much longer.

A very weak, surface crust was quickly melting when I started my tour at around 11:30 on N facing slopes. Supportability was poor, more often than not I'd sink to my shins with skis on in weak wet snow like a trap door. Sometimes i'd find an old wind slab or just a better-frozen area and only sink in a few centimeters with skis or boots. Boot pen ranged from 70cm (nearly the ground) to 10cm. Snowmobiles would bog down into the weak, wet snow. I did get some very localized collapsing under my skis in places a few times, but no whumphing.

I found a location that was NW facing at 5,700ft for a profile, it was 75cm deep.
The early March crust was 25cm down, and what was left of the early January crust was down 50cm. A compression test collapsed suddenly with 21 taps (hard) on weaker wet grains beneath the early March crust.

Pushing on steeper slopes, I could get surface snow to slide down, but for the most part, it wouldn't entrain. I did find one slope with remnants of more recent snow that began to entrain into a WL before the slope angle slowed it down.