Public Observation

Observation Details

Observations

If I had a nickel for every whumph today, I'd have a few bucks. At 8,000' on east and north aspects in the trees, I experienced whumphing approx every 5 to 10 steps. There was also extensive localized cracking (no shooting cracks). The snowpack was quite shallow here with bushes sticking out. I dug down and underneath the new snow is facets. As I gained elevation, the snow got deeper and the whumphing eventually completely ceased. My impression is that this is because the overlying slab was thicker, thereby making it harder to impact the persistent weak layer. I wasn't interested in rolling the dice on potentially hitting a sweet spot that might allow me to impact the weak layer, and therefore I stuck to low angle terrain.

Interestingly, I traveled on some forest service groomers today, and I experienced localized collapses and cracking even on that track.

I observed isolated surface hoar in very sheltered low elevation areas.

Some low elevation surface snow on solar aspects has been getting moist the past couple days. Glop stopper is helpful.

Signs of Unstable Snow