From obs: "Toured up into the Blackmore/Elephant basin today to get a sense of the snowpack ahead of the upcoming storm cycle. I poked around and dug in a few spots, trying to observe variations in snow depth and to observe where the snow has been faceting. Every pit I dug, ranging from N to SE facing, had faceting near the ground, all of which reacted in stability tests, if stubbornly. The most interesting test result was an ECTP21 in this layer of basal facets. That pit was dug in a large wind drift. I saw no propagation in any other pit or test.
Toured up into the Blackmore/Elephant basin today to get a sense of the snowpack ahead of the upcoming storm cycle. I poked around and dug in a few spots, trying to observe variations in snow depth and to observe where the snow has been faceting. Every pit I dug, ranging from N to SE facing, had faceting near the ground, all of which reacted in stability tests, if stubbornly. The most interesting test result was an ECTP21 in this layer of basal facets. That pit was dug in a large wind drift. I saw no propagation in any other pit or test.
Strong wind gusts were moving large amounts of snow in the alpine, while below treeline they did not exceed moderate speeds and wind transport was non existent. Large drifts were present on lee slopes, while more exposed windward slopes had little to no snow.
Otherwise the snowpack has behaved as one would expect. Solar aspects and exposed flats have a 2-3cm thick sun crust on the surface, and a further complex of crusts throughout the shallow snow pack. Snow depth ranged from 0 - 100 cm throughout the basin, and was generally thinner on solar aspects. Pretty bad skiing all around, not excluding the rock gardens on the skinner out.
I made it up to an old crown in a north-facing chute around Fairy Lake at around 9400 ft; it broke the night of 11/6 or the morning of 11/7. It looked like a wind slab that broke on a rotten layer of facets intermixed with scree. Found facets to be fairly widespread through the bottom of the snowpack on the north-facing slopes and surface hoar on most nonsolar slopes.
Dug a small pit on NW aspect at about 9100 and saw about 5cm of faceting right on the dirt and got ECTP22 on that layer. Some surface hoar present but mostly melted off.
Quick loop on the sleds around Black Canyon. 50 cm (~20 inches) of snow at 8000'. Good layer of surface hoar on top, and the upper part of the snowpack is starting to facet. Non-issue for now with snow coming this week that could double the snowpack.
