Observation: Bald Mountain

The snowpack on the Mirror Lake plateau is thin and intermittent. Very little snow has accumulated/stuck around below 10,000'. In the immediate Bald Mountain Pass area, shaded slopes above 10,000' are holding a variable amount of snow (0-10 inches), depending on how rough the terrain is and where the wind was moving snow as it was falling. Most slopes are still studded with rocks, though there are a few ribbons of more consistent snow in isolated locations. We did not see any large starting zones that were completely covered with snow. I've attached a few photos documenting this coverage below.

As observed elsewhere, the snow that fell during the early middle of October (10th to 15th) has refrozen into a stout mass that generally supports boot travel. My primary snow concern looking forward is what is happening above this strong surface. Additional snow and graupel fell in periodic but intense bursts October 22-25. During this period, I observed at least two surface hoar formation events, as well as some periods of faceting at the snow surface. On solar slopes, these layers of weak snow have been muted and melted by the sun, but anything tilted away from the sun has stayed cold and dry up here. The wind has done some work to scrub some of this weak snow away.