Public Observation

Observation Details

Observations

After a head fake towards Bishop Bowl, we climbed to around 9250' on the N side of Red Mtn. On the way, we saw many natural slides on Basin, Tom, and the Wheeler Crest, including those nasty ones near the bottom of Tom that look like they ran on the ground.

Widespread runnels in the snow where rain came down on Thursday night. We never traveled over any wind affected snow, but up ATL there was wind texturing, and around 11AM we saw some downslope winds transporting snow high on the N face of Red.

Today was HOT with super light winds at the elevations we traveled in. The fresh snow is transitioning really fast. Even at 9000', E aspects were producing plenty of rollerballs by mid-late morning. By late morning, snow below 7800' was really sticky and wet, making for slow skiing. Car thermometer read 52F at noon.

Besides the rollerballs, no other signs of surface instability.

Dug a pit at 8750' N aspect, exposed slope. We were mostly interested in seeing the structure of the new snow and how rain penetration had impacted this elevation.
Depth of snow: 250cm
From the top:
250-195 F to 4F right-side up new snow
195-190 P damp crust
189-136 4F to 1F consolidated
135-down F rounding facets

Signs of Unstable Snow