Public Observation

Observation Details

Observations

We toured in the Bishop Bowl area today and dug a pit for some informal observations. At 11.5k ft on a fairly open East face, we found a total HS of 350cm, though we stopped digging at 240cm, finding that the snow was in a very "right side up" condition, and getting more and more dense the deeper we went. In the 240cm that we observed, there was a 50cm surface of F hard dry snow, then another 50cm of denser but still F hard, then 70cm of consistent 4F, and 70cm of consistent 1F that continued below the bottom of our pit,
No cracking or other signs of instability were observed, and no recent avalanches were observed. The skiing surface was variable, from soft and silky to 1" breakable crust and sastrugi.

Signs of Unstable Snow