Variable Snow on Incline Lake Peak

The Incline Lake Peak area provided variable conditions across several different aspects today. We found breakable crusts on some slopes in the morning, warm wet sticky snow on sunny slopes, soft cold snow on sheltered N facing slopes, and wind hammered surfaces on exposed upper elevation slopes. The warm sunny weather also was melting the cornices along the ridges which had icicles dripping off of their edges. 

We went back into an area where we knew a shallow snowpack existed to see if we could get more data on the old buried weak layers. We used our probes to look for the most shallow area. In most places, the snowpack measured 5+ft (1.7 to 1.8 m) deep or deeper. After a bit of searching and descending into a farther north and lower elevation area, we did find the Dec 11 facets about 3 ft (1m) below the the surface in one spot. In this area, the snowpack was only a little more than 4 ft (1.3-1.4 m) deep. When we dug into the snowpack here, the upper snowpack was strong and consolidated above the looser weaker Dec 11 facets. Snowpit tests showed that the Dec 11 facets still remained weak and that while they are currently supporting the snowpack above them another loading event might still be able to reactivate them.

We skinned back out and spent some time on the ridges looking at the weather. It remained sunny warm and calm and we could not see any blowing snow. We also looked around for signs of previous avalanche activity. We saw some evidence of old wind slab avalanches on some of the surrounding peaks. We also saw some very small roller balls near a few of the sunniest cliffs.