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Observation: Pleasant Creek

Observation Date
2/4/2020
Observer Name
John Pikus & Zeb Engberg
Region
Skyline » Pleasant Creek
Location Name or Route
Pleasant Creek
Weather
Sky
Few
Wind Direction
Northwest
Wind Speed
Light
Weather Comments
Very cold, light to moderate winds. Beautiful afternoon to be out.
Snow Characteristics
New Snow Depth
12"
New Snow Density
Low
Snow Surface Conditions
Powder
Snow Characteristics Comments
The Pleasant Creek area seemed to be a real winner from this storm! New snow totals in areas we traveled seemed to range from 8 to 20 inches. I think deeper areas were due to sluffing off steeper slopes or places where the snow accumulated due to the wind but most areas had at least a foot with more in mid-elevation areas. Snow was ultra low density powder and came in right side up. It did sluff easily in steeper areas but generally seemed well bonded to the previous surface snow and didn't form any sort of slab. Winds were clearly active during the storm, drifting snow onto south facing slopes but this only seemed to be a problem right below ridgelines. The small drifts we encountered were not reactive.
Comments
We toured in Pleasant Creek this afternoon at elevations of 7,000 to 10,000 feet on predominantly north facing slopes. We did not see any evidence of recent avalanches except for dry loose sluffs in steep terrain. Winds had clearly been drifting snow onto south facing slopes and we did note some terrain features on north facing slopes which were cross-loaded. See photo below, which shows a new south-facing cornice starting to form on the ridgeline. We skinned through several of these drifts and experienced no cracking or collapsing. The north facing slopes we skied consisted of a foot or more of low density powder that hadn't slabbed up at all. We dug a few hand pits down to about 3 feet deep and didn't note any concerning looking interfaces. The new snow fell on a variety of surfaces ranging from wet snow at lower elevations to wind and sun crusts at higher elevations. It appears that the strong winds and warm temperatures on Sunday killed any surface hoar or weak surface snow.
Today's Observed Danger Rating
Moderate
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
Moderate
Coordinates