Public Observation

Observation Details

Observations

Went for a tour today up Lundy Canyon attempting to reach the same area I dug a snowpit at on Christmas Day. I wanted to see how much the snow height had changed in the same location after these last two wind events. I didn't get very far up the skin track, weaving through a lot of sagebrush that was covered a couple days ago, before I could see up the hill at my Christmas Day snowpit and realized the snow level was almost to bare ground. I found my way up to the leeward side of one of the smaller ridges that looked like it had decent windload and decided to stop there to dig another snowpit to see the extent of the wind loading. Height of snow was 95cm. A compression test revealed a mostly clean fracture at 4 taps at 60cm from the ground between a knife hard and pencil hard layer. I also noticed avalanche debris of D1 size with torn out sagebrush mixed into it at the base of the short gully I was in. It appears that it was most likely the result of a small cornice fracture at the top of the gully.

Signs of Unstable Snow