Observation: NWAC Forecaster

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Weather Summary

Storm slowly dissipated throughout day. Occasional open sky patches were noted from 10am onwards, although intermittent precipitation (mainly graupel) continued with another ~5cm falling throughout the day until substantial clearing began occurring at 4pm. Occasional light wind gusts occurred.

Snowpack Observations

About 20cm of new overnight snow was present on Glacier Creek Rd. An additional base became present at about 2500ft. New snow amounts totaled around a foot or a bit more at 3500ft and up.

Very few wind-affected areas were present where we traveled, aside from a more exposed south-facing location at about 4200ft where some drifts were noted.

In pits, we found a generally right side up snowpack in the top 2ft, with the 2/13 crust beneath that. My main concern was the new snow/old snow interface, just over a foot down. I got easy and moderate compression test results on the layer, although not enough of a slab was present in the fist-hard overlying surface for an extended column test to propagate. It was hard to find, but there were some small facets and surface hoar at the old snow surface. This layer wasn't really able to be identified in the pit wall until a test failed on it.

Overall the riding was very pleasant, and the crust 2 feet down was hardly noticeable. We didn't enter steep terrain, but didn't see any avalanches or other signs of instabilities. At the end of the day as we returned, we found graupel deposits several inches thick had built up in the last few hours at the bottom of steep cut banks, which was very impressive.