Observation: Public

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

Skied North and Northwest facing terrain in the Joe's Shoulder/ Party Knoll area of Silver Basin under clearing skies and calm wind this morning. Temps were trending up. Plenty of other people around on this beautiful day.

Height of snow at 6K ranges from 125-150 cm. No notable slab development today, although the top couple centimeters have stiffened from wind affect in isolated areas. I did not observe any signs of instability.

Observations from a NE facing study pit at 5900 ft:
Snowpack consists of ~30cm of right-side-up new snow on top of a layer of Pencil-hard crust from 11/16 rain that is about 20cm thick, below which is a mostly homogenous layer of dry snow to the ground. The top layer appears well bonded to the crust and failed to propagate during stability tests. I did not observe faceting at this interface. Basal forms at this site consisted of melt forms and rounded grains.

-Nate