Observation: Public

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

Another superb touring day.

Weather: Blue and sunny for much of the day, with broken clouds on and off. A little breezy at Bryant Col, spindrift was spinning off Kaleetan, but otherwise light/calm winds for much of our day.

The snowpack continues to settle, with cracked settlement cones visible in many places, but the ski and ski-touring quality remains excellent. The latter is of particular importance; we cycled the Chair Peak loop clockwise today, with truly pleasant/secure skintracks even in the steepest spots.

Melakwa valley has some windscouring/slab beneath the most-recent storm snow. Suncrust evident in the top ~50 feet on the west side of Bryant Col.

Instability limited, yet again, to loose-dry. One natural spilled off the cliffs into Great Scott Bowl, crossing an older skintrack.

Sheltered/shaded snow surfaces continue to show small SH grains with a dusting of stellars atop. The sun again lightly sintered solar slopes, but we encountered no new suncrust by the time our tour ended in the afternoon.

Looking forward to the coming storms -- the only thing truly in need of a refresh are the heavily-used skintracks, there's still so much more good snow out there that hasn't yet been skied....

Turning to the photos, as our tour ended before dusk, I hopped up Silver Fir for some afternoon photos around the Pass. I've never seen so many tracks on Kendall. (Images licensed CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0.)