Observation type
Snowpack

Observer
Guru Narasimha

Keep me anonymous if published
no

Email (this will only be used if we have questions and will not be published)
[email protected]

Location (general area)
Base of North Chute of San Gorgonio

Latitude

Longitude

Date (yyyymmdd)
20220405

Time
11:00am

Road conditions to area

Temperature

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

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

Wind direction
not observed

Wind direction in degrees

Slope aspect
North

Aspect in degrees

Slope angle

Elevation

Snow depth
85cm

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
I had my first ever alpine summit last weekend on San Gorgonio mountain. We were group of 4, backpacked through South fork trail and camped at Dry lake. We carried snowshoes anticipating we would need it but snow is mostly gone upto Dry lake except for few patches on switchbacks on dry lake trail and last 0.3mile to camp. Most of the snow in camp area is melted too.
On Sunday, we started at 3:30am and headed on the trail towards North face chute. Weather was good and chute was stable since it was early and we summited by 8am. There were few spots in the middle of chute were snow was a bit loose even at 5-6am before sunrise and few spots at last 500ft were icy, otherwise it was perfect for the climb. 
We had the summit for ourselves but we ran into 2 skiers and 2 dayhikers on this day.
We started down climbing around 9:30am and made it back to camp by 11:30am. Then break the camp and reached back to cars by 5pm.

On the way back from chute to camp, I tried to do a crude snowpack test (as a practice as I’m a beginner who just took Avalanche course) using my avy gear. There was about 85-90cm of snow at the base of chute around the spot where I measured. As you can see in the last picture, I saw a weak layer underneath but I don’t know if that was a bad spot that I picked as there was some vegetation.

Publish this observation
Yes I would like this observation Published

Snowpack_pit

The lower section