Frosty Creek Camp

Snowpack

heathtanderson · Jan 14, 2022 · Manning

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Quick report

Weather
warm
Ride Type
denseTrees
Riding Quality
terrible
Snow Conditions
crusty, hard

Goal was to reach treeline below frosty mountain and observe above to see if the higher elevations were affected by the recent warming. Did not complete this due to spending most of our day just getting to the campground. From the Frosty Mountain trailhead to about 1850m the trail is extremely hard pack and icy. Plenty of deadfall and very hard to follow. Once above 1850m the grade flattens out, and snow became slightly softer, still hard to follow trail. Spent most of the day just getting to the campground. Dropped down to Frosty Creek from there and rode out though the creek. Frosty creek is lacking snow to ride out easily. Spent most of the way out with skins on. Lighting lake was frozen enough to walk on until the shallow section by rainbow bridge then became solid again on the other end.

Weather

Wind Speed
windSpeedCalm
Sky Condition
brokenClouds
Precipitation Type
none

Temperature stayed just below 0 (estimate) for the day. Crust was hardly affected by the sun where it managed to break through.

Snowpack

Depth
160
Obs Type
summary
Site Elevation
1900
Site Elevation Band
btl
Surface Conditions
crust
Test Failure Layer Crystal Types
crust

Lots of signs of the recent warming we have had. Pinwheeling and loose wet movement. Those were now all frozen solid under a crust. Skis didn’t fully break through the crust but couldn’t stand on it without falling through.