Observation type
Snowpack​

Observer
Anonymous 

Keep me anonymous if published
yes

Location (general area)
Eastern San Gabriel Mountains

Latitude


Longitude


Date (yyyymmdd)
20220226

Time
1130

Road conditions to area


Temperature
37F

Sky
clear (no clouds)

Wind speed
Light (1-16mph Flags/twigs in motion)

Wind direction
NE

Wind direction in degrees


Slope aspect
North East

Aspect in degrees


Slope angle
35

Elevation
7200ft
Snow depth
75cm

Boot/ Ski penetration


Precipitation
None
Activity, recent avalanches
No

Brief description


Whumphing noises, shooting cracks. collapsing
no

Rapid warming
yes

Obvious avalanche path
no

Terrain trap
no

Comment
Headed out for a mellow local tour with modest expectations for what I'd find. To my surprise, snow conditions were excellent even after 2-3 days of clear weather. The very cold nature of the 2/22-2/23 storm, plus the cool days and cold nights that followed, seemed to keep the surface in prime shape. There were obvious locations of thin cover and bare earth, mostly on low-angle and sun affected aspects, but the steeper North facing aspects skied the best, with 10-20cm of soft fluffy powder. By noon, anything in direct sun was turning over to "hot pow" but still skied great. I suspect Sunday will be punchy and crusty given the quick warmup and milder overnight temps.

I dug a pit on a 35 degree NNE test slope at 7200ft and was met with a surprisingly deep snowpack. 75cm deep. 1F snow from 55-75cm with a thin melt/freeze crust at 55cm; 1F snow from 40-55cm (ostensibly last week's storm) that showed signs of faceting, plus another thin crust at 40cm; 0-40cm pen hard remains of early season snowfall that also showed signs of faceting. I did a quasi-column test (forgot my saw...) and didn't see any evidence of obvious failures, but would take that with a grain of salt given the poor test execution.

These findings were consistent with other recent observations on >7000ft North aspects, where anything under a clear sky and sheltered from the wind was converting over to a sugary texture, whereas any solar input resulted in more pronounced melt consolidation. Overall, the effect of more sunshine is becoming obvious in the local mountains, and the areas holding soft snow are becoming higher and steeper. It will be interesting to see how this week's warmup affect the current snowpack, and how that plays with any future storms (fingers crossed.)

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pit

facets