Observations – Canyon Road (Peak 2-3)
Signs of instability:
- No obvious red flags
Weather:
- Mostly cloudy (passing low clouds) with very light on/off drizzle
- Calm wind with light breeze at the top of Peak 3
- Temps in the low-mid twenties
Surface conditions:
- Very light on/off drizzle from the afternoon creating a very thin and still very soft surface crust
- 1-2″ soft, semi-moist new snow from Wednesday night to Thursday morning covering everything
- 6-20″ recently fallen snow (past couple days) in wind loaded and deposition areas
- Other areas scoured to tundra/rock besides 1-2″ overnight snow
Snowpack discussion:
Nice surprises up Canyon Road today. Coverage has improved from last week (see Christmas day observations) with soft, supportable recently fallen wind packed snow with a couple inches of even softer overnight snow on top that hasn’t been wind affected at all.
The last run of the day was from about 3300′ in the SW gully off Peak 2 that shares a drainage with the main Peak 3 gully. Snowpit profiled on the skier’s left of the gully where the snow was of “average” depth for the areas that have enough coverage to beckon for and provide the best turns.
Snowpit location:
See the notes at the bottom of the pit graph:
