Professional Observation

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Snow Stability

Key Points

• I toured up and descended down the north side of Mount Downs in the June lake area today in hopes of finding soft surface snow and getting an idea of overall coverage.
• our last measurable precip was in late December and honestly, I’m impressed at how well the coverage has held on during the time since. However, significant settlement has occurred and the snowpack, in general, is waining.
• HS measured 20-50 cm up to about 8500′. This snowpack is fairly supportable considering how thin it is and the significant faceting that has been occurring in shaded areas.
• HS above 9000′ measured up to 110 cm in depth. again the snowpack is quite supportable and transitions quickly from loose F hard surface facets to a more robust pack (~1f~) of rounded facets about 20 cm or so below the surface.
• Thin temperature crusts up to about 1 cm thick dominate the surface below 8500′ or so however I noted that many of the crusts I found today are seem to be faceting and breaking down quickly.
• Several areas of stiffer or frozen surface surround trees, where old tree bombs fell, made for the occasional, surprising, change in surface quality and kept me from being too complacent
• Areas of small surface hoar 2-6 mm in size were scattered throughout my tour today.
• No signs of instability were observed on my tour.