CAIC Observation Report
SnowpackMark Gober ยท Dec 7, 2010
Weather
broken low clouds hanging around, otherwise clear. Stiff north wind moving a fair bit of snow into Southerly aspects
Snowpack
In the Topeka side, we were on a northerly aspect near TL. There was 5-6" of new on top of older faceting snow, which lay on a finger hard slab that was 20-30 cm thick. This sat on old depth hoar. Only did a quick hand pit so no test results. In the niagara side, we skied a southerly aspect beginning abv TL and it was 6+" on supportable suncrust. Overall, quite thin (less than 50cm), but the ground there is grass. The new snow was only cracking on ridgeline fairly localized around skis with little propagation. Even with great prodding it was hard to get new soft slab at ridgeline to move very far on the old surface. As expected, the slabbiness of the new snow on the southerly aspect decreased soon after leaving the ridgeline. We only saw limited new avalanching that was a result of the new wind loading. The two locations were cross loaded, abv TL on NE'erly aspects where new cornices had failed, popping out small, thin pockets. Nothing widespread, or even big enough to enter as an avalanche. The quote of the day from John C while skinning up through the trees "the only thing supportable out here are the logs"