Snowpit/ On the go Obs Schallenberger

Today (12/14/22) we were focused on observing conditions on non solar aspects near Donner summit.   Before our tour we drove up old HWY 40 to look for any signs of natural avalanches. We saw evidence  many avalanches that looked to have failed during to storm along our drive.  Most of these seemed to be wind slabs/ cornices stepping down to what could be assumed to be the DEC 1 PWL.  Most of the slides we observed occurred on NE aspects and were D2 in size.  The most notable of these slides occurred on "the heart" on Donner peak.   I would estimate this slide to be D2.5 R3  that looked to have been a hard slab avalanche.    

After taking a quick drive up the summit we double back to try and target the Dec 1 buried facets at a slightly lower elevation- I was curious to see if the PWL would be present and easier to trigger at a lower elevation.  We toured up the north aspect of Schallenberger ridge and did not notice any yellow flags (shooting cracks/ wompfing etc.) We did observe settlement cones around trees, and significantly less ski penetration then prior outings earlier in the week.  The trail breaking was easy with the new settlement and we found a location to dig a full profile pit on a sheltered  NNW slope in treeline at about 6900'.  The snow pack structure was much better than we had anticipated at this location- The Dec 1 PWL presented moist and on its way to rounding.  We preformed two tests at this location- CT22 Q2 60CM - and ECTx.   I would like to highlight this pit as being ONE single data point... Hopefully it helps you to build a wider picture of the pattern here. 

After touring up to the top of the ridge we saw evidence of another avalanche that had occurred sometime during this past storm- crown looked to be about 250' wide 7300' N Aspect 39 * slpoe angle - hard to estimate the total size beyond that since there was so much new snow concealing the debris.   

Healing snow pack? maybe.   Lots of evidence of recent natural avalanches in the Donner Pass area- we stuck to conservative well anchored terrain for the duration of our day just to give the Dec 1 facets a respectable birth.