Observation: Turnagain

Location: Lipps

Date:
Observer:
Route & General Observations

Toured up normal Lipps uptrack to the ridge. Skied further up Spokane Creek for another lap.

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

Clear skies to start and high overcast moving in around noon. Calm wind. Temps were cold in the valley, single digits are the car, but warmed up at higher elevations.

Snow surface

Surface hoar up to ridglines but much larger
(~5 mm) at lower elevations. Settled snow from the recent storms underneath. There was a noticeable crust just below the surface up to about 1200'. From 1200' to 2000' the surface was about 30 cm of soft snow. Above 2000' there was 10-20 cm of soft snow on top of wind hardened snow underneath.

Snowpack

We dug some pits at 2000' and had no propagating results in our ECTs. We found a first hardness faceted layer on top of the New Year's crust down 55 cm and the older mid-November facets down 100 cm.

On our uptracks we did lots of hand pits and ski pole probing. Mostly the surface snow felt right side up and strong but in a few areas the pole would dive through to deeper and weaker snow. These spots were isolated for the most part and the pole had to break through a stout crust to reach the weaker layers.

Photos & Video
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