Observation: Turnagain

Location: Tincan

Date:
Observer:
Route & General Observations

Normal tincan uptrack to treeline at 2500′

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

Light to moderate snow throughout our tour, with a total of 5cm of new snow over the course of 3 hours. Calm winds, and no evidence of winds at elevations we could see but visibility was not great. Temperatures were around 15 F.

Snow surface

Very low density new snow with about 50cm since the start of the latest round of snow on Monday night into Tuesday. Trail breaking was knee to thigh deep, but luckily there was already a skin track in!

Snowpack

We dug a snowpit at 2300' near treeline on a south facing slope. In two sperete extended column tests we got propagation in a layer of buried surface hoar that was on the snow surface on Monday (ECTP 6 & 11). This is the interface between the most recent 50cm of storm snow and the old weak surface from our stretch of cold temperatures. We were surprised to see this layer propagate despite being very low density and not appearing to act like a slab on test slopes or while doing travelling tests. There didn't seem to be any wind effect in the area that we dug our pit.

Photos & Video
Please upload photos below. Maximum of 5 megabytes per image. Click here for help on resizing images. If you are having trouble uploading please email images separately to staff.