Becker Ridge Observation

I toured around Becker Ridge today looking at the state of the snow pack and hunting for surface hoar. After a couple windy days up high, winds were calm and the sky was clear. On a sunny aspect lower on Becker Ridge I stepped off the skintrack curious to examine the melt freeze crust. While the crust was there, I was more impressed by how weak the snow was underneath it. Our recent cold temps, long nights and weak sun of mid November are producing some impressive near surface/near crust facets even on this sunny slope. Continuing up the ridge, I found evidence of the recent east winds where the skin track was covered in blowing snow in a few open spots. There was also a large amount of pine needles and other tree debris on the ground from the recent high ridge top winds. 

I dropped over to the north facing shady part of the ridge above a still liquid Echo Lake. Here the snow was a little deeper and lacked the melt freeze crust  that had been at my previous sunny spot, but the snow was again very weak. Roughly the uppper foot of the snow was faceted weak sugary snow that resisted being formed into a snowball. Just from a snow travel perspective, as the snow pack weakens it is becoming less supportable thus making it easier to hit shallowly buried trees and rocks. 

Photo 1: 41 cm pit on the sunny side of Becker Ridge

Photo 2: The old skin track on the ridge completely covered by redistributed snow from the previous east winds.

Photo 3: North facing open terrain near the ridge. Lots of pine needles but very little surface hoar. 

Photo 4: This was the area I found with the most surface hoar. It was directly on the ridge. 

Photo 5: Looking down on the mostly liquid lower Echo Lake. 

Photo 6: This open area has produced impressive surface hoar in the past, but I didn't find much here today (although the upper snow was quite faceted).