Professional Observation

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Snow Stability

Key Points

• Cold temperatures and brokens skies with occasionally flurries marked the day skiing in the woods in the June Lake area.
• New snow totals were 1-2″ up to 9700ft. Looking at the Negatives from afar, I saw one skier lay down a nice looking track with some depth to the turns in the new snow.
• Old snowpack in the lower elevation trees has a robust melt-freeze crust, I imagine the moist and likely some rain yesterday added to forming a thin crust on snow surfaces below 9500ft. It was catchy enough to make skiing just a bit grabby today underneath the new surface dust.
• Due north facing surfaces above 9500ft in the trees were quite faceted upwards of the top 15cm of surface grains which provided for soft turns.
• Total snow depths were 70cm at the most below 9500′
• I wasn’t able to get into the higher elevations of the backcountry today, but I imagine there was a decent load and certainly some soft wind slab in terrain conducive to capturing snow. Moderate Hazard was a good call for the upper elevations today on the northerly through easterly aspects. Ritter and Banner peaks looked to have gotten a decent amount of snow with the cliff faces cloaked fairly well with new snow.

• Took some turns in the afternoon at the big ski area and found great conditions. They reported 3-4″, but there was quite a bit more off the top of the mountain with the wind loading and continuing light snowfall. Cold temps and on-going snowfall through closing hours made for great skiing.