Shallow Weak and Variable on Silver Peak

The Pole Creek Rd. remains mostly snow and ice covered with a few patches of exposed road in the sunniest spots that we walked across. We used the road to get up to about 6700 ft then pieced together snow patches up to around 7000 ft where coverage become more continuous. Above 7000 ft, northerly aspects held a wide variety of snow conditions. Some open sheltered slopes still held soft near-surface facets. Tree-covered slopes held firm crusts, and upper elevation slopes held a mix of wind crusts and faceted snow. Overall, the snowpack could be described as shallow, variable, and generally weak. In many areas, it has also become less supportable and more shallow. We hit rocks on slopes where we did not on 11/30.

We took advantage of the low avalanche danger to dig in some of the avalanche paths in this area. Weak snow abounded in the lower elevation below treeline avalanche paths with well-developed facets near the surface and within the shallow snowpack. We did artificially load a Propagation Saw Test (PST) with a 10cm slab and let the slab rest for an hour. When we returned and did the PST test we got a 28/100 SF result. Weak snow also existed in the near treeline paths near the Silver Peak Ridge. These facets have been growing since the last storm on Nov 18 and may not hold up under the new snow load expected tonight and tomorrow.