Incline Peak Observations

I traveled in the Incline Peak area today skiing and taking a look at potential instabilities. While skinning up I made multiple assessments of the new storm snow - a mitt pit in BTL terrain yielded a Q2 shear at the new / old interface and a quick compression test slightly higher up resulted in CT6 Q3 on the same layer. I was also able to initiate minor shooting cracks within the recent snow but only after undercutting small test slopes. Westerly winds were moving snow near the ridge and traveling solo I decided to avoid wind loaded terrain.

Surface conditions were quite pleasant so I skinned back up for a second lap. I was curious about the 2/19 crust so I veered off the skin track just below the ridge and dug again on a northerly NTL slope. Overall the upper snowpack in my pit was right-side-up and I did not observe any glaring instability.

The sun only poked through on occasion today with intermittent snow showers approaching S2 at times.