Friday, January 25, 2008

Back to Electric Bowl, some of the best skiing so far this year. Total snow depth 65" at 9500'. Tuesday 9" of low density snow, and Thursday another 6" or so with little wind with the exception of summit ridges. Snow skied like 16" plus despite good settling in Tuesday snow. Did not find evidence of northern hurricane winds from Tuesday a week ago, at least in the areas we were in. East facing slopes have 3/4" breakable suncrust underneath Thursday new snow and would expect an even stouter crust on southern exposures.

Cloudy cool day with SW winds 10-15 at ridgelines and snow flurries all day. Lots of low density snow to transport as winds pick up with incoming storm on Sunday. Trees just off ridgeline still loaded with snow, and when temps warm Steve remarked tree bombsmay require wearing your helmet.

Surface snow obviously very weak, found 2-3 mm surface hoar formed between Tuesday and Thursday snow with shovel tilt test. Isolated column test found failure CT 15-17 Q 1 on nsf? buried 16" in older snow from before last Tuesday storm, but would not propagate in ECT.

Cornices sensitive at ridgelines, would crack and run although not very far. once off ridgelines, sluffing on steep slopes was only hazard. All this will change with Sunday's forecast, but failure most likely between old/new snow interface.

Any deeper that 18" or so the snow swiftly went from 4 finger to 1, and have no concerns about deeper snow instabilities this year on plateau. Mammoth-Cottonwood snotel now at 111% of normal, and it has been a while since I have seen snow as deep down the canyon clear to Fairview.

Mt Loafer, closer to home, Jan. 19, 2008

Working on route up west face of Mt. Loafer. Made a lap today to up to 8500' before i ran out of time. Winds had done there damage last Tuesday, with most significant drifts on southern sides of ridges, then capped with a breakable crust just to make things interesting. direct route out involved some serious bush-whacking, but northern aspects did have some pretty good skiing in weakening surface snow. Steeper slopes would sluff surface snow, but just top 6" or so. Pictures of avalanche path that stopped just short of lots for sale in Woodland Hills, other pictures of West mountain and Oqquirhs way off in the distance. Overall a nice day with little wind, temps in 20's, and partly cloudy skies. Sun did not make it over the mountain before I was down.

Wednesday Jan. 2, 2008

saturday/ sunday storm has settled out to around 10" of new with spectacular wind damage on wsw and s facing exposed ridgelines. widespread cornice falls widespread on e and ne facing, with hard slab chunks the size of smart cars (not quite vw's). despite the obvious extreme cornice growth and failure, did not see any slabs initiated by these backcountry bombs. remaining cornices warped and old looking from warm-up and time could still be sensitive but you would have to venture way out beyond the point of no return to test them. otherwise no activity noted and new snow is bonding well and adding to the thickening strong snowpack. dug pit in n facing sparse trees, wind had even reached down into sheltered areas with crossloading around tree stands and terrain features. could not initiate any failures in pack with ect, and stopped when my hand got sore. only way to identify differences were with isolated column compression and just plain feel. all in all this pack is reminicent of two years ago, with issues remaining in the new snow/old snow interfaces only.
skiing was creamy settled snow, wind thickened in places, but overall quite good despite the punchy healing inverted upper layer. only penetrating top 6" or so except on steep rollovers and you could punch a little deeper. good set-up for skiing more extreme terrain.
weather was much warmer that last week with -5 C temps early afternoon. partly cloudy skies with very light winds (not a kiting day). snomobilers were able to access all kinds of terrain on mon/tues and did not see any activity considering how hard they have tried. would expect fairly good bonding with next warmer storm, no usual giant plateau surface hoar yet.
see attached pit and pictures. lightning caused fire burn trees where we left snomobiles looked really cool against all that white snow