Feb 13, Moonlight bowl
2/15/11
3207
5
Went out for a quickie to check out the new snowfall. Found 8-12" in the shade on short NW slopes on backside of moonlight. Good stuff. Crossed over ridge to Moonlight and found 6-8" of sun blasted snow. Fun, heavy, sweat inducing turns. Snow was pretty well toasted by noon.
How did you find the stability on moonlight? We were up there for the final field day of an Avy 1 class and we were getting some really easy shears in our test pits, CTV, CT1 & CT4 on a buried surface hoar layer near the ridge crest at about 5100' on a east aspect.
author=robert link=topic=19570.msg83229#msg83229 date=1297711881]
CTV, CT1 & CT4 on a buried surface hoar layer near the ridge crest at about 5100' on a east aspect.
How far down? We spent the weekend nearby (and slightly lower) on Tonga/Fisher Lake (TR coming), but never felt anything nearly that twitchy in anything but the new.
author=trumpetsailor link=topic=19570.msg83230#msg83230 date=1297712216]
How far down? We spent the weekend nearby (and slightly lower) on Tonga/Fisher Lake (TR coming), but never felt anything nearly that twitchy in anything but the new.
The CT1 and CT4 were from my pit and were at 37cm. The CTV was from a classmates pit and I cannot recall the depth. There were other pits in slightly different areas that were much less sensative. All of the pits were on very shallow slopes of around 20 degrees. I think we managed to find sensative snow due to a location with a combination of enough sheltering to maintain the surface hoar and with the correct aspect to be subjected to sufficient wind loading which buried it intact.
On 35 deg. + N.W slopes we could get the top inch or so to move, but could not release anything bigger with repeated cuts on rollovers. Moonlight was fairly baked, wet, and heavy over the crust so point releases were expected, and we saw plenty of them on steeper areas. With some conservative terrain choices we stayed well out of the action. I did not note any hoar's, but not surprised you found some.
I am glad you were able to get on that slope and get some turns.
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