Nov 20, 2011, Paradise - Snowpack Observations

Paradise - Beginning of the Season Snowpack Observations

Since our little ski gang tends lean way far to €œSkier€ side of the of the €œSkier/Snow Scientist€ meter, it usually takes some major motivation to find us digging a pit. But despite our being able to often come up with plenty of €œreasons€ why digging is not necessary we all usually seem make time dig one or two pits to the ground early season, if for no other reason to just to help establish a bit of a base line for our weekly monitoring of the snowpack in terrain we tend to frequent though out the snow year.

Yesterday our 7 person group did 7 continuous pits, about half of them to the ground. Here was our highly unscientific observations, for those at may be interested or were thinking about it, but just didn€™t get around to digging themselves (as is usually our case) :)

Pit to ground, 5800 ft; SE aspect (115 degrees) Alta Vista.
Snow depth 4 to 5 ft in (135 cm in one).
The expected faceting was present at ground following by about of two feet of 4 finger hard snow up to a pencil hard 6 to 8 inch supportive, D-8 dozer bridging, rain crust. The 2 to 3 feet of snow on up to the surface was of 4 finger to fist hardness.
Shovel shear testing discovered an easy (Q1) share with the earliest 6 to 10 inches of snow. Another 1.5 to 2 shear about a foot above the rain crust. The snow immediately above the rain crust was well bonded to the crust and sheared there (Q3) mostly due to hardness differences.  Another shear layer observed about a half way between the bottom of the crust and the ground.

Except for first layer/shear sloughing, no instability was observed during compression testing.

General observations:
The supportive rain crust could be observed through pole testing in nearly all areas, must thinner to the surface in windward terrain.
Extensive surface hoar was also noted in many areas.
Best skiing was found on steep lee slopes which had experienced the least wind and sun exposure.

It was a beautiful day, especially in the morning.