Observation: NWAC Forecaster

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Weather Summary

Snowing in the morning before the Crystal sucker hole opened up and some sunshine came through. I was out of the field around noon.

Avalanche Observation Comments:

No new avalanches were observed.

Snowpack Observations

I took a rocket trip up East Peak, down into Cement Basin, and back up and over to the car before shooting home to write the forecast.

I generally found 30-50cm of low-density snow over the 3/2 interface as I traveled. The depth varied a bit based on elevation and exposure to wind. While there were plenty of signs of recent wind-effect such as cornices, textured surfaces, and some fatter drifts, I didn't actually get any Wind Slabs to fail during my time out today even when I kicked some cornices. The cornices did fail easily and grabbed some additional loose snow on the slopes below, but did not run very far. The storm snow lacked much cohesion except when I was exiting the field around noon, slopes seeing direct sunshine were consolidating and slabbing up a bit more.

Digging in Cement Basin, I found generally right-side-up conditions with a series of melt-freeze crusts due to recent sunny weather. There is a crust sandwich down roughly 60cm that still has me a bit concerned moving forward, but for now, there isn't too much of a slab on top of it. Small column tests lacked impressive results, but there were some mid-storm density breaks that failed in the HST. May have found some remnants of buried SH at the 3/2 interface, but again, not overly concerning or impressive in this location.