Carson Pass Observation

Decent coverage on N and NE aspects above 8000 feet in Carson Pass area. Snow depth on uplowed road at 8300 feet in the trees was 60 cms. Snowpit on lee slope with some previous wind transport was 125 cms. Upper 70 cms of snowpit was impressively right "side up." Snow progressed from Fist hard to 4 Finger hard. A stout 6 cm thick pencil hard rain crust existed 52 cms above the ground at this location. Compression test results CTN and Deep Tap results of DTN looking at the 4 finger layer below the rain crust. 

Photo 1: Annotated photo of hand hardness snow pit wall showing "right side up" upper 70 cms of snow. 6 cm thick crust and interesting 4 finger snow below crust. 

Photo 2: Light sastrugi on snow surface in near treeline terrain. It appeared that most of this occurred previously.