Snow profile from the sherwins

Went for a quick tour up to Sherwin ridge from the Mammoth rock trailhead this afternoon. Ski crampons were very helpful for navigating large areas of supportable windboard and well-used skin tracks along my ascent to the ridge. Along the ridge and in open areas the wind board is holding on strong but in more sheltered and shady areas surface faceting has kept things pretty soft and made for some nice turns along my descent.

I dug in at 9500’ on a NE aspect with a height of snow of 125 cm. A similar snowpack structure exists as we have been seeing throughout the season. The bottom of our snowpack is still faceted although those basal facets are compressing and gaining strength. I did see reactivity on these lower facets in a deep tap test, but I did not see results in my CT or my ECT test. (see profile for more details).

Temperatures were below freezing today, and skies were overcast. Winds were relatively calm although they did seem to rise steadily throughout the afternoon. No signs of snowfall by the time I descended around 4 pm. I did note that some surface warming occurred on northerly aspects at lower elevations near the trailhead, but the temps seemed low enough to avoid a substantial greenhouse effect.