Observation: Public

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

We toured from Summit West to Kendall Knob then Kendall Lakes, then up and down Kendall Lakes Gulch, and came down through Kendall Trees into Commonwealth basin. The topmost layer was cold powder, about half a foot in the trees around 3000 ft steadily increasing to about two feet at 5500 ft (at the top of Kendall Lakes Gulch). We did not dig below the ice crust, the snow on top of the crust was right side up and appeared on be well bonded to the crust. Hand pits showed no slabbing, shearing, or propagation. When we got to the top of Kendall Lakes Gulch we found lots of stiff wind slabs near the ridge, they were perhaps 10 inches thick, stepping on them caused cracks, hand pits showed a lot of cohesion, they would move if they were on steeper terrain (into which we obviously did not venture). Ducking back under the ridge got us back into endless powder. It was very, very cold throughout the day, our thermometer showed -14C pretty consistently.