Public Observation

Observation Details

Observations

On Sunday, we skied from the Convict Lk TH to the top of Laurel Mtn, then descended Pinner Couloir. Winds were lighter than we expected but still strong at times. Despite the gusts, only some mountains had blowing snow near their peaks - downslope winds scouring the headwall of Mt Tom and the Wheeler Crest and Morrison were flagging. Supportable windboard was the most common surface type we encountered during the day, though Pinner held a lot of refrozen wet slide debris.

We saw some snowpack transformations in progress. Above 11500' on the most shaded aspects, firm windboard was starting to decompose into facets. Below about 8500' on a S/SE aspect, the snow is in full melt-freeze transition. In the late morning the surface crust had already refrozen and by mid-afternoon when we were descending, the combination of thick wet snow under the refrozen crust made skiing very difficult.

No signs of current instability were experienced. Beta photo of Red Slate is attached.

Signs of Unstable Snow