Storm conditions on Silver Peak

Upon our arrival at the Pole Creek trailhead at 9 am this morning, snow level was just a hair below 6,000'. As we toured back towards the Sierra Crest we encountered snowfall rates around 1 inch per hour (S2) that lasted for our entire tour which wrapped up at 1:30 pm. New snow amounts at 7,500' had accumulated to 5 inches by 12:45 pm and it was still snowing at S2. The new snow was wet and fairly high density. A weak, easily breakable crust existed at the old/new snow interface in almost all areas below 7,200' from yesterday's warming. Above that elevation, this crust was only really noticeable in flat areas and on solar aspects. At 7,500' the crust could be found in hand pits on NE aspects, but it was very faint.

We moved over the top of several wind loaded areas along the east ridge of Silver Peak, intentionally collapsing cornices where we could do so safely. We did not trigger wind slab failure. The large cornice chunks we collapsed entrained storm snow as they slid downhill. Some very minor slab flank was noted, but no propagation beyond the width of the collapsed cornice section. A testpit dug nearby targeting the newly formed surface wind slab gave an ECTN-11 result.

No cracking was observed while breaking trail in wind protected areas. Cracking was very minor at best in wind loaded areas traveled with a new wind slab present.

We did not interpret that our findings demonstrated stability in what otherwise presented as a storm environment where instability is expected. As such we opted for conservative terrain choices on the decent.

Upon our departure from the area at 1:30 pm, snow level was down around 5,900'.