Observation type
Snowpack

Observer
Philipp Arndt

Keep me anonymous if published
no

Location (general area)
NE Face of Jepsen, San Gorgonio Wilderness

Latitude
34.10352

Longitude
-116.84163

Date (yyyymmdd)
20260221

Time
16:20

Road conditions to area

Temperature

Sky
Scattered clouds (3/8 to 4/8)

Wind speed
not observed

Wind direction
SW

Wind direction in degrees

Slope aspect
North East

Aspect in degrees

Slope angle
approx. 33 degrees

Elevation
10630 ft

Snow depth
~90 cm above hard ice layer

Boot/ Ski penetration

Precipitation
None

Activity, recent avalanches
No

Brief description

Whumphing noises, shooting cracks. collapsing
yes

Rapid warming
no

Obvious avalanche path
yes

Terrain trap
no

Comment
We ski toured the San Gorgonio area from South Fork overnight Feb 21-22, 2026. We skinned up from the start of the gated service road from Jenks Lake Road towards Poopout Hill, and set camp between Charlton Peak and Dry Lake. On our way in, we did not observe any recent avalanches or signs of instability in the snowpack, despite the recent storm. 

We proceeded to Big Draw bowl and dug a pit on a small test slope with northern aspect. An extended column test in this pit yielded no results (ECTX; see other submitted observation for details). 

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THIS OBSERVATION:
We continued up towards the north east face of Jepsen, where at the base of the NE chutes we encountered some discontinuous areas with poorly-bonded, up to ~3in thick wind slabs that broke off when stepping above the skin track. 


At 4:20PM, we dug a second pit at the base of one of the NE chutes, where this slab was present (see attached map for details). We encountered the previously reported ice layer again, at about 80cm below the surface and did not dig much deeper due to the extremely hard, frozen layer below. The wind-deposited snow sitting atop this ice layer was about 1F to P hardness throughout, with an obvious weak layer 5-10cm below the surface. An extended column test in this pit yielded collapse with propagation on the 22nd tap (ECTP22) at the weak layer. The thin top layer that separated upon collapse and propagation was quite cohesive and did not break when we removed it. The test yielded no further results, indicating that the new snow from the last week had bonded well to the bare ice layer below in this location also. 

Since the top layer that we were concerned had only been sporadically present in isolated areas and was not too reactive in our pit, we decided to proceed with caution, up the northeast chute of Jepsen, while monitoring it. Based on stepping above the skin track during kick turns, this slab remained present in small, isolated areas only and did not noticeably increase in thickness or appear to be any more reactive at higher elevations (all the way up to the summit).
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As expected, the conditions skiing down the NE chute of Jepsen were variable und not very pleasant but the skiing became better lower down in the bowl and in the low-angle trees towards the campsite where some of the snow had remained cold and soft. 

In the morning of 2/22, we skied the treed and up to ~30 degrees steep north-east aspect to the east of Charlton (see attached map), where the snow had largely remained cold, soft and pleasant to ski despite the recent significant warming. 

We skied out via the summit of Charlton, the NW-facing slope towards just below Dollar Lake Saddle (already somewhat variable from melting and re-freezing the day prior) and Alto Diabolo. On the treed northern aspects of Alto Diabolo we already found very variable conditions from melting and refreezing, and the lower half was low-tide conditions with rocks hiding in the soft snow and plenty manzanita/bush traps towards the bottom. The service road had just barely enough coverage to ski back to the car in the afternoon. 

Note that due to the rapidly warming weather that is also forecasted to continue throughout this week, conditions will likely change drastically from what we observed on our tour. 

Publish this observation
Yes I would like this observation Published

digging the second pit

Our route on Jepson, with the location of the pit