Observations from Carson Pass

Warm day touring around Roundtop on Carson Pass. About an inch of snow fell south Hwy 88 on Saturday 2/22, and it's impressive how much a single inch of new snow improves condtions. With some wind deposition there were plenty of north facing areas holding fun looking couple day old powder turns, and even a few spots that produced fun pow turns today. 

On south facing slopes I could not detect any evidence of the recent snow. While corn conditions were found on sunny slopes around 10:30am, coverage is shrinking on these slopes and some care connecting snow fields is required. Pausing and listening at gullies one hears the sound of running water under the snow. I exited these south facing slopes by noon and did not observe any instabilities. 

Photo 1: Around an inch of soft new snow still present in shady terrain at 8600. In this location the new snow was sitting on top of an easily breakable crust with uncohesive near surface facets below. 

Photo 2: A couple day old powder turns. Almost forgot what those looked like. 

Photo 3: Reverse bootpack at the ridge where fresh snow was compacted by someone walking and then all the uncompacted snow subsequently blown away by the wind. The little bit of new snow did occassionally make travel on north facing terrain more challenging. I found a couple panels of very firm snow that held just enough soft new snow to disguise the firm surface below the fresh. 

Photo 4: While south facing slopes in this area are still rideable down to 7600 feet, coverage is rapidly shrinking. 

Photo 5: Examining the new snow and what is below. This location was near Winnemucca lake at 9200 feet. The new snow here was sitting on top of 10 cms of rock hard older snow. Care was required to excavate so as to avoid breaking my shovel.