A Pleasant Surprise on Forum

Snowpack

Obs Type

summary

Site Aspect

E

Test Fracture

resistant

Site Elevation

2100

Ski Penetration

10

Test Initiation

hard

Foot Penetration

15

Test Failure Depth

60

Site Elevation Band

tln

Surface Conditions

newSnow

Test Failure Layer Crystal Types

facets

We expected some dust on crust and horrendous conditions but were pleasantly surprised by a nice new layer of powder 15-20cm thick, 25cm in protected wind loaded areas. This sat upon various bombproof melt-freeze crusts of January. This crust covered layers of various hardness but ultimately sat on a 10-15cm layer of facets. This whole structure sat on another hard crust about 60cm down. A CT found the top crust to be unreactive but yielded hard results (21) on the lower crust 60cm down. Failure was a bit resistant but planar. Overall, skiing conditions were quite good but we felt the crust at spots. I gave the day a 7.5/10.