Soft Snow, Crusts, Wind, and Surface Hoar in the Cold Stream Drainage

This morning the cloudy skies and moderate SW winds kept things cold on the Sierra Crest between Mt. Lincoln and Anderson Peak. The winds had scoured and sculpted the snow surface on the windward side of the ridge. In some places, the winds had even exposed old crusts making travel loud and icy. Small drifts of wind-blown snow had formed on the leeward side of the crest. They remained shallow and did not extend more than 1 to 3 feet downslope.

The wind effects dissipated as we descended from the Sierra Crest. We found consistent soft cold snow on the northern aspects. We also found widespread surface hoar on open slopes below about 7500 ft. This 10 to 15mm surface hoar had a dusting of new snow on top of it. These feathery crystals sluffed off of steep slopes if we ski cut them. 

The cloud cover gave way to sunny skies by the afternoon. We still saw some blowing snow but no new precipitation. Sunny SE and low elevation E aspects had a thin breakable sun crust from previous sunny days.