Observation: Snowbird periphery

1"

Medium

Dense Loose

The snowpack has undergone some changes over the last few days since the blockbuster of a storm we received. The riming event on Tuesday and into early Wednesday left some interesting rime crusts in places not exposed to high wind, although they seemed to break down with warming on Wednesday afternoon. The upper elevation west-facing slope we were on had myriad textures from wind ripples to rounded pillows. The surface temp was -.01C and S-20 was -2.7C. A pencil hard 1cm wind crust was present where we dug our snowpit. Total depth was 85cm (65 cm of consolidated 4F to 1F rounds sitting atop 4F- facets). Our pit tests came up with the same results of Q1 failures at 20cm from the ground failing on faceted early November snow resting on top of a thin sun crust that capped the faceted Halloween snowstorm. In fact, we heard a faint collapse when we stepped out of our skis to dig. Slope angle averaged 33 degrees.