Observation: Public

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

Well, today was a good day for snowshoeing if you're into that. Went up Maggie's with the goal of practicing my snowpit skills and immediately encountered a 1/2 cm breakable crust, probably pencil hard. Everywhere. A pit on a west/275 degree aspect with a 32 degree slope at 5341' revealed a somewhat heartbreaking 20 cm of soft, dry snow below the knife or harder 1/2 cm ice crust. There weren't any NPS Law Enforcement Rangers around to confirm if it was bulletproof. Anyways. Boot pen was 17cm. Clearly, we did not have much of an avalanche problem today, more like a travel problem or an injury problem, maybe some of us acquired an attitude problem (just kidding!), but there were numerous snowpack layers to look at in my 126cm deep pit. But nothing moved unless I moved it. The ski down the Wrinkles was variable, and that's putting it nicely. Some patches of spring-like wet snow existed where the sun had done some work but nothing continuous enough to let your guard down.

The weather was lovely - very light breeze out of the NNW, few clouds, ambient temp of -2 C in the shade at 11:27am, sunny and warm otherwise. Great conditions for seeing the 200+ flock of gray-crowned rosy finches cruising around the Ridge for the last couple weeks but they did not visit me today. There's always tomorrow.