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
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
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