Sunrise Bowl

We toured on a dawn patrol this morning in Sunrise Bowl. Leaving the cars at 6:45am tempeartures were cold (~6 F) with no wind, and no cloud cover.

Throughout our quick tour we observed similar a little warming as the sun came up, but still well below freezing. As we crested the ridge we were met with a light west wind (3-5 mph). Wind transport of snow was not observed, but some signs of transport existed near the top of Donner ridge (NE facing ~7800 ft.). Near the top of the ridge the snow was uncolsolidated and did not exhibit any slabby characteristics. We observed widespread surface hoar between 0.25cm and 0.75 cm in size throught the zone (NE, E, 7200-7800ft) including on tracks that were a day or two old.

We skiied cautiously to avoid hitting barely submerged obstacles. The snow surface was very soft and light with 3-7in. of cold snow on a firm frozen surface.