northern flank of Heather Mountain
Quick reportmatz · Mar 4, 2024 · North Columbia
Quick report
- Weather
- cloudy, cold
- Ride Type
- cutBlocks, openTrees
- Stayed Away
- alpineSlopes, convexSlopes, steepSlopes, sunnySlopes
- Riding Quality
- amazing
- Snow Conditions
- deepPowder
Blair Piggot and I toured up the heather mountain fsr yesterday and made our way up to 1830m about 2.3 km north of heather mountain peak. There, on a north aspect, we dug a pit. Snow was 170cm deep. Column test failed CTH22 RP down 40cm and CTH26 RP down 66cm. The surprise was that this failure was 40cm down in the storm snow—not 66cm down at the interface between the storm snow and the drought affected snowpack. We speculate that the failure was on a layer caused by the warm spell between the two storms last week.
Weather
- Avg Temp
- -2
- Wind Speed
- windSpeedCalm
- Sky Condition
- brokenClouds
- New Snow24 Hours
- 0
- Storm Snow Amount
- 60
- Temperature Trend
- rising
- Precipitation Type
- none
- Precipitation24 Hours
- 0
windless broken cloud
Snowpack
- Depth
- 172
- Obs Type
- point
- Site Aspect
- N
- Test Fracture
- resistant
- Site Elevation
- 1844
- Ski Penetration
- 25
- Test Initiation
- hard
- Foot Penetration
- 66
- Test Failure Depth
- 40
- Site Elevation Band
- tln
- Surface Conditions
- newSnow
- Test Failure Layer Crystal Types
- other
Column test failed CTH22 RP down 40cm and CTH26 RP down 66cm. The surprise was that this failure was 40cm down in the storm snow—not 66cm down at the interface between the storm snow and the drought affected snowpack. (where the column not surprisingly failed also) We speculate that the failure was on a layer, perhaps a thin crust, caused by the warm spell between the two storms last week.