Elephant's Hump observations

We toured Elephant's Hump today looking at changes in snowpack structure and snow surface conditions. As in other locations, the previously problematic Nov 13 facet layer has rounded and bonded with the rest of the lower snowpack and is no longer reactive. Near surface faceting is at work on the upper snowpack. Of greater interest was the snow surface mix of 3-4 mm graupel from last Sunday night's trace snowfall on top of 2 to 10mm surface hoar. There are no major new snow loading events in the forecast, but if small snowfall events are able to bury and preserve this layer it could become a very problematic weak layer. Time and observation will tell.

Despite the mostly 1.5 foot deep snowpack in this area, conditions were very ski supportable. Buried rocks, logs, etc were easily avoided.