Professional Observation

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Snow Stability

Key Points

Decided to check out Punta Bardini this morning and toured from the Sherwin creek road propane tank trailhead up to the 9700ft mark.  I descended via the 2nd from the top Barndini chute and with some side stepping and linking up of snow patches, was able to slide back to the car.  Here are a few things I noticed along the way:

• No signs of instabilities were seen on my tour today
• Snow level seemed to be around 9300 feet, at least before noon with no real accumulation observed before noon and some periods of light rain showers
• Lots of new broken snags, branches and tree debris in the forest from the recent wind events
• North facing terrain bellow 8500 feet with less than a 20 degree slope has transitioned to a wet isothermal snowpack
• Was able to skin/ski from the parking area, but coverage is disappearing quickly
• Open areas(non forested) bellow 8500 feet had a supportable temperature crust that was approx. 5cm thick
  • Forested Areas had a mix of light sometimes supportable temperature crusts with many areas of wet unconsolidated snow
• On steeper(20degree+) North facing terrain found snow to be moist down 7-10cm with dry facets bellow leading to some gloppy skinning conditions at times
  • Within a few hundred feet of the NE ridge snow was moist down 1-2cm on top of a pencil hardness wind board.  I dug a few quick hand pits on the way up and found the wind board to be 10-20cm thick with dry 4F facets present bellow the wind board
  • No temperature crust were found on the steeper facing north terrain today
• I was able to produce very small roller balls and sloughs during my decent of the bardini chute but only with the moist 1-2 cm of snow that sat on top of the windboard base
  • Relatively constant 1-2cm of soft snow on top of supportable smooth windboard in the chute lead to enjoyable skiing at all elevations of the chute
  • Snowpack depth of 150cm in the center of the chute about halfway down
• As warm temperatures are forecasted throughout the rest of this week and the snowpack continues to transition, keep an eye out for instabilities, especially in areas with cohesive slabby snow (wind packed areas)