January 2, 2012, Chair Peak Circumnavigation
1/2/12
WA Snoqualmie Pass
2350
4
A couple friends and I circumnavigated Chair Peak on Monday, for the third day of skiing in a great New Year's weekend. The forecast looked pretty unpleasant but the warming and precipitation never showed up as predicted. We found all kinds of snow conditions ranging from wind buff to breakable crust to boilerplate, and even a little powder here and there. Conditions in Bryant Couloir were really nice, the choke was pretty hard but it was easy for me to sideslip the 10 feet of the crux.
I wanted to mention one nasty condition we ran across which I'd never seen before. Deep pockets of tiny styrofoam-like balls with no cohesion. Specifically we found these coming up from Melaklawa lake to Bryant col (W-SW aspect). I don't know what causes these but they were really tough to skin in, and these pockets could be big problems when they're covered with fresh snow.
I wanted to mention one nasty condition we ran across which I'd never seen before. Deep pockets of tiny styrofoam-like balls with no cohesion. Specifically we found these coming up from Melaklawa lake to Bryant col (W-SW aspect). I don't know what causes these but they were really tough to skin in, and these pockets could be big problems when they're covered with fresh snow.
Your 2nd pic is eerily cool. Of course, I'm a sucker for tele turns. Thanks.
author=counterfeitfake link=topic=23050.msg98030#msg98030 date=1325729885]
I wanted to mention one nasty condition we ran across which I'd never seen before. Deep pockets of tiny styrofoam-like balls with no cohesion. Specifically we found these coming up from Melaklawa lake to Bryant col (W-SW aspect). I don't know what causes these but they were really tough to skin in, and these pockets could be big problems when they're covered with fresh snow.
That's graupel: http://www.fsavalanche.org/encyclopedia/graupel.htm
Thanks, that is a great link. I have seen graupel but never in such deep stashes. I guess it probably fell that way and was just transported onto the slope.
Cool pics - were the pockets of graupel below cliffs or in terrain traps? Imagine tossing a lot of tiny balls onto a slope with cliffs and some shallower angled areas or gullies below them. The balls will bounce off the cliffs and pool below in the shallower areas/depressions and a similar thing happens with graupel. It's called graupel pooling:
http://straightchuter.com/2009/10/first-day-of-the-200910-season/
http://straightchuter.com/2009/10/first-day-of-the-200910-season/
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