Warm and windy at Carson Pass

Warm start to our day with wet, gloppy snow on the surface that had us questioning if temps had stayed above freezing last night (I later checked Snotel and it had barely dropped below freezing). Firm snow along ridgetop and sastrugi that was large enough to require attention while skinning through. Excellent wintery snow on the E aspects, with just a few inches of ski penetration and difficult pole probing.

Three snow profiles at different elevations on E aspects above pindrop showed a strong slab over the Dec 11th facets, and no evidence of a recently buried surface hoar layer. Dec 25th interface was still easy to see, but did not produce concerning test results. The Dec 11th facets were buried 70-90cm down. ECTs could not cause the Dec 11th layer to fail, but I think it's getting out of reach from that test (much of the overlying slab was 1 Finger hard). At all three locations, Deep Tap tests produced obvious Sudden Planar results on Dec 11th.

Pic 1: Dark clouds blocking the view of Roundtop. Shortly after taking this photo, it began intermittently snowing and freezing misting at Meiss, which left a trace of new snow by our departure at 3:30.

Pic 2: Big, firm sastrugi along the ridge and even downslope towards Meiss. Winds were strong out of the SW, but minimal wind transport was observed, likely due to the moist surface snow on windward aspects.

Pic 3: This avalanche path is a repeat offender, but still doesn't have much snow. Good coverage in the trees however.