Objective
I intended to ski the northerly, shaded, wind protected lower flanks of Patsy Trees. Ascended via Patsys Ridgeline.
Result
Fun riding, woohoo!!. Some call today's conditions "Recycled Pow", others "Loud Pow". The fancy call it "diurunal recrystllization"
Time for lap two!!
Skinning back up the ridge? Felt like walking on a bed of smooth marbles.
The extent of the faceting - In excess of at least 1ft (30cm) at times
I found very weak, faceted/rounded/rotted snow in two places:
- between the thick trees.. falling through to the dirt a few times :(
- areas that were once windslabs
For the upcoming storm...
exercise some caution on what you may consider to be a "Terrain Anchor" as the snow is rotted to the dirt in some areas
For you fancy people..
the fancy refer to the "loud pow" phenmonen on it as "diurnal recrystallization"
What is all this "faceting" and "recystallizing" crap?
The snow loses it's characteristics (structure, feeling, texture) in a similar fashion that your warm thanksgiving meal loses its texture (and therefore, it's deliciousness) when exposed to differing temperature gradients: from initial preparation, waiting around on the dining table, cut up for serving, then a cycle of refrigeration and reheating for leftovers.
Think of "gradient" as "temperature per distance travelled"
Like the flow of water, air follows the path of least resistance.
"Diurnal" referring to the "daytime" It's a bidirectional temperature gradient. Two directions of changing temperatures. Positive during the day, negative at night.
Positive Gradient (Heating)
Ambient "heat" from the sun (aka Shortwave Radiation) seeps into the snow surface. The sun's rays contain a lot of energy.
Starting from the surface, temperature of the snowpack increases.. The deeper it goes, the less heat there is to work with so there's a limit to just how deep the sun can heat it.
Positive gradient during the day , reference to an increase of temperature with an increase of depth
Negative Gradient (Cooling)
The sun goes away! Where does all the energy from the sun's rays go?
It's emitted from the Earth's surface (rises from the snowpack) as the surrounding air cools..
Negative gradient at night, refers to a decrease in temperature with an increase in depth.
Max recorded "high" temps at alta @ 45F, Max recorded "low" temp at alta @ 26F. Temps hovering around 32F with +/- 4 in variance. With the Hottest "high" @ 45F being reported Nov 17
Repeat for two weeks!
