Waterhouse North

We toured up the north side of Waterhouse Peak starting at noon. At the foot of the climb at Grass Lake, there was surface hoar, and we observed surface hoar in bigger and smaller pockets all the way up. The snow was highly variable in the first third of the climb to about 8300 feet; debris, ice, chunks, unconsolidated snow, soft breakable crust, harder breakable crust were all in evidence. In the second third of the climb, there were still larger areas of unconsolidated snow. Towards the top, with less tree cover, there was evidence that yesterday's wind event blew snow around. There were also some hard crust, dust on crust, and unconsolidated snow sections. At the top around 2:15 pm, there was a SE wind, and it was cold. The descent was fine on the north facing slopes with some powdery snow and dust on crust. On any south facing slopes, there was breakable crust. The bottom third of the descent to the lake is somewhat hazardous at the moment due to the highly variable snow conditions.

We dug a snowpit at 8563 feet. With a total snow depth of 144 cm, we saw a 4 cm surface hoar layer on top of a hard ice layer at 135-136 cm.

Pic 1: Surface hoar at the bottom of the climb at Grass Lake.

Pic 2: Debris field.

Pic 3: Towards the top, yesterday's wind blew snow around unevenly.