Home > Trip Reports > Feb 29, 2012, Mission Peak, Clara Lake

Feb 29, 2012, Mission Peak, Clara Lake

2/29/12
WA Cascades East Slopes Central
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Posted by jtack on 2/27/12 2:59pm
Took a quick tour up through Clara Lake this afternoon, to see what the snow was like.  My thought was that there would be signs of instability.  I was surprised, when I skied out into the Clara lake bowl, and discovered snowmobile and snowshoe tracks all over the place, I guess they don't read the papers, or look at avalanche forecasts.  I bumped into a couple of guys that skied down from Mission peak, and they felt like stability was fine.  I set a careful track and stopped on what I felt was a representative slope and dug a quick pit. (not an expert, but this is what I saw)  Three inches of fluff, a thin 1/8 in crust, 8 or 10 inches of denser snow sitting on that early Feb. crust, large crystals on top of the crust(1 inch thick), and fragile layer below.  It seemed like the pack was fairly durable. This was on a NE slope at 6100 air  temp. +-19. This is in sharp contrast to what I was seeing on Saturday, with about anything I cut releasing. I would not read too much into this observation, just putting it out there for others to see, I will continue to be very conservative with my  skiing.
author=jtack link=topic=23919.msg101222#msg101222 date=1330412378]
Took a quick tour up through Clara Lake this afternoon, to see what the snow was like.  My thought was that there would be signs of instability.  I was surprised, when I skied out into the Clara lake bowl, and discovered snowmobile and snowshoe tracks all over the place, I guess they don't read the papers, or look at avalanche forecasts.   I bumped into a couple of guys that skied down from Mission peak, and they felt like stability was fine.  I set a careful track and stopped on what I felt was a representative slope and dug a quick pit. (not an expert, but this is what I saw)  Three inches of fluff, a thin 1/8 in crust, 8 or 10 inches of denser snow sitting on that early Feb. crust, large crystals on top of the crust(1 inch thick), and fragile layer below.   It seemed like the pack was fairly durable. This was on a NE slope at 6100 air  temp. +-19. This is in sharp contrast to what I was seeing on Saturday, with about anything I cut releasing. I would not read too much into this observation, just putting it out there for others to see, I will continue to be very conservative with my  skiing.


Your observations really seem to align well with the weather:
Perhaps:
3" from Fri night through Sun morn
1/8" crust from the brief warming between Thurs and fri storm cycles
8 to 10" from the previuos weekend storm cycle (we propably skied this at Blewett two weekends ago)
Feb crust supportive and bridging underlying weaknesses for the time being.
Much, much less snow delivered here in the last two significant storm cycles I'd guess.
Thanks for the report,
John

I think that thin crust under Sunday night's snow, 3-4", was from rime that was widely deposited by wind on Saturday night. I found it to be widespread on Sunday at mid to low elevations on windward and exposed terrain. I was surprised to find it on Sunday morning after the stellar conditions Saturday. Telemetry indicated no warming during that period.

author=aaron_wright link=topic=23919.msg101228#msg101228 date=1330441194]
I think that thin crust under Sunday night's snow, 3-4", was from rime that was widely deposited by wind on Saturday night. I found it to be widespread on Sunday at mid to low elevations on windward and exposed terrain. I was surprised to find it on Sunday morning after the stellar conditions Saturday. Telemetry indicated no warming during that period.

Interesting, thanks for the clara-fication.  I didn't check the tele, since I was focused on skiing the crest. Then east of Blewett did not experience the warming from the short warm front passage between the moisture rich cold lows.  Now that I think about it, it does not seem like the area even got much of the rain that slammed the crest Tues/Wed?  At least above 6000 ft, whch wouldn't be indicative of Tronsen conditions, though.  Any other thoughts/obs, Aaron?
Thanks,
John

author=John Morrow link=topic=23919.msg101233#msg101233 date=1330447471]
Interesting, thanks for the clara-fication.  I didn't check the tele, since I was focused on skiing the crest. Then east of Blewett did not experience the warming from the short warm front passage between the moisture rich cold lows.  Now that I think about it, it does not seem like the area even got much of the rain that slammed the crest Tues/Wed?  At least above 6000 ft, whch wouldn't be indicative of Tronsen conditions, though.  Any other thoughts/obs, Aaron?
Thanks,
John
We got warming on Thursday, but that only seemed to affect snow that had been skied, that was my observation on Friday. It rained hard on Tuesday but turned to snow at lowering temps about 1800 and continued to snow until 1700 or so on Wednesday. Snow fell at lowering temps with decreasing wind and left the perfect snow profile it seemed to me. The Grouse Camp snotel recorded 21" of snow during this period. This is about 1 mile west of Mission Peak. Mission area received a few inches early Saturday morning with very strong winds, I think the tail end of this event came with some rime Saturday night. Sunday morning saw another couple inches of snow/graupel with moderate wind. 4" Sunday night and Monday morning fell like a blanket at very cold temps for WA. Overall the skiing is and has been excellent in the eastern Wenatchee Mountains. Talked with patrol and the consensus is that the hazard around Mission Ridge in areas with natural snowpack is considerable. There should be widespread 4-6" of near surface facets and large surface hoar buried under the snow and crusts from the recent storm cycle. I observed this in areas east and west of the ski area during the week or so of high pressure. I found from 8-14" of very light snow in areas along the eastern boundary of the ski area yesterday.

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2012-02-27 22:59:38