Observation: Turnagain

Location: Center Ridge

Date:
Observer:
Route & General Observations

Center Ridge to the weather station area

Weather & Snow Characteristics
Please provide details to help us determine the weather and snowpack during the time this observation took place.
Weather

Temp around freezing
Overcast to obscure sky with light snow

Snow surface

2" of new dense snow sat over a wet or moist surface from the day prior (Saturday), which was generally not supportable. Hoped to find non-crusty/dry surface conditions on the north aspect from the top of center ridge (2000'), but previous day warming had left a thin layer of moist snow with a slight refreeze on the top.

Snowpack

Given the bad ski conditions I was able to convince my party to dig to the ground!!!! I plan to use this tactic again in the future, but next time intentionally. See below for the pit structure - no tests as we were mainly interested in the bottom half of the snowpack. Location was just northeast of the Snotel site on a north aspect, in a representative location for the elevation. Overall, no big density or hardness changes in the bottom half of the snowpack, including at the ground where moist large grains - well bonded - were present. The only noticeable structure change was in grain size, as noted below. This included a homogenous layer of large rounds 220cm down - 15cm thick - that I suspect are the remnants of the 12/1 facet/crust combo.

Photos & Video
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