Observation: Public

Name:

Matt Crisler

Observation Date:

March 6, 2021

Submitted:

March 6, 2021

Zone or Region:

West South

Activity:

Skiing/Snowboarding

Location:

Mount Rainier - Mazama Ridge

None reported

Toured from Paradise to Alta Vista on the way to Mazama Ridge. Observed 5-10 cm of wind affected new snow in most locations with a Light to Moderate W wind moving a decent bit of snow in the morning when I was in more open areas. The morning saw low clouds and impaired visibility mixed with intense sun breaks that appeared to rapidly change surface snow from very light to much more coherent quite quickly; however, these were short duration so did not lead to wet surface snow. Got good views to the East of Mazama Ridge during a sun break and did not observe any visible crowns in the Stevens Canyon area.

My main objective for the day was to dig to the 1/13 crust which I found ~290 cm down on an E aspect at 5600' on Mazama Ridge. Interestingly, below the 10cm of surface snow (F-4F) was a layer of F hard larger crystals that failed in a compression CT15 PC. No other layers produced test results DTN @65cm, DTN@290cm though the bottom of the ?2/11? crust did produce a planar fracture ~240cm down while extracting the top of the column for the deep tap test at 290 cm.

These crystals were remarkably large and F hard below the most recent snow. A few more faceted crystals appeared to be mixed in with mostly melt forms as seen here.

Crystals from the 1/13 crust. These were pretty solidly frozen together and did not fail in either a deep tap test nor when shearing the column with significant force after the DT.

~290 cm of snow above the 1/13 crust marked with a crystal card. Other significant crusts marked with field book, pencil, and thermometer.

Some remarkably large cornices building on the middle rise of Mazama Ridge.

Observation: Public

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Signs of Unstable Snow

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