Trent Meisenheimer

Salt Lake

Brighton Perimeter

This video is about the spatial variability of our buried rain/rime crust found in the Wasatch Mts. Bruce Tremper says it best. "Rain crust tend to be more smooth and slippery than sun crust except in cases of hard, drenching rain. Instabilities associated with them tend to last much longer, typically several days after a storm deposits snow on top of a rain crust and sometimes through several storms. Also, unlike sun crust, rain crust form uniformly on all aspects, but like rain, rain crusts are highly elevation-dependent. Typically, rain falls at lower elevations and as you ascend through the freezing level, the rain progressively turns to snow." (Staying Alive In Avalanche Terrain) Furthermore, rain crusts also act as a barrier for vapor transfer throughout the snowpack. Typically you will find faceted snow just underneath the crust, which can be a tricky set up.