Observation: Spring City Canyon

Observation Date
1/9/2015
Observer Name
Kobernik/Kendall
Region
Skyline » Spring City Canyon
Location Name or Route
Spring City Canyon
Weather
Sky
Few
Wind Speed
Light
Weather Comments
Another warm day with perhaps slightly cooler temps in the PM than previous days.
Snow Characteristics
Snow Surface Conditions
Wind Crust
Melt-Freeze Crust
Damp
Snow Characteristics Comments

Random pockets of soft snow remain above 9000 feet. Gotta hunt for them and they're tricky to find. Snow has been damp to 9000 or 9500 feet on all aspects. So, anticipate a crust at most locations since temps are cooling.

Comments

We didn't observe any avalanche activity over the last two days. Weather on Saturday will not increase avalanche danger. Things are generally stable. It's possible you could find a small pocket that might release if you were on a very steep upper elevation slope that has been loaded by wind, but this is an outlier.

Overall, the snowpack does not look too bad. You can find relatively weak snow near the ground in the deeper snowpack areas but it is not a huge concern right now. However, this could be concerning with a significant additional snow and/or wind. This is not in the near forecast.

We looked at a number of north facing avalanche paths that avalanched before Christmas. The snowpack is obviously more shallow in the bed surfaces, only around 1 1/2' deep. There has been some weakening (faceting) that's occurred over the last week of high pressure, but it's not alarming. Had temperatures been colder during this past week, the snow would have become much weaker.

Overall, the snowpack remains supportable in most locations we traveled. The surface is not particularly loose in the majority of starting zones right now.

For this weekend, anticipate mostly stable conditions and a LOW avalanche danger.

Today's Observed Danger Rating
Low
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
Low