Professional Observation

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Snow Stability

Key Points

• Afternoon ascent of the East Gully of Basin mountain (again). Really the easiest relative access given the dramatic melt off and difficulty reaching McGee creek yet on the Buttermilk road.
• Relatively cool 23degF @ 10500ft @ 2pm. Light swirling breezes. It wasn’t a totally clear day with some high haze building up mid-day which inhibited significant warming of solar surfaces.
• 3-4″ of new snow on NE aspects where wind loaded, otherwise more like 1″ of new snow on average throughout the gully. The new snow by this afternoon already had a 1cm sun crust on it from the morning solar input.
• The new snow where wind loaded was 4Finger hardness and cohesive, but pretty well welded to old surfaces. When isolating small blocks I could pull it off with moderate force and not what Id call a clean shear from the old snow. Pretty rough and resistant. Subsequently on ski cuts and hard turns on the way down I could not get anything to propagate or crack in the new snow from 11200ft down.
• Minor warming on due East and southeast this afternoon, just enough to cook down the new dusting a bit.
• Upper elevations above 11000ft were pretty well stripped on the northerly aspects.
• The cooler than expected temps, some cloud cover mid-day and light breezes even kept the low elevation remaining strips of snow firm and not that pleasant to ski.
• Lower snowfields around 9500ft are getting meager and 3-dimensional. Not a lot of smooth surfaces left except some strips in gullies and sporadic panels of wind board. Its really unfortunate as far as right now the spring corn season we are renown for isn’t going to be very good at all unless something really significant happens with a big dump that is cold and snows down low. Seems pretty unlikely at this point, but who knows.
• No instabilities noted.