Snoqualmie Pass 2/10 corn report

[crazy_t]

Did a short tour this morning into Commonwealth Basin. From Alpental road (roughly 3000') climbed through the woods and then only went up a couple hundred feet into actual open part of the basin (to roughly 4300') due to time; I wish I had had a bit more time or started earlier.

 

Above 4100' or so, southerly aspects, especially those open to sunlight (and not shaded by trees, terrain features etc) were creating really great corn conditions. Things like Red Mountain, or the couloir above the head of the basin (off of the ridge viewer's left of Red Mountain) would have been really great. We started skiing down at 11 am today (in a pretty much due S aspect); with today's temps and intermittent sun, maybe that would help some of you time some nice corn turns in the next couple of days. A 12 o'clock descent from up high might have been good; but had it been sunnier or warmer, maybe sooner. The descent from 4100' or so to the road was of "mixed/mixed-" quality; a little scratchy or punchy, alternatively.

 

I was interested in checking out what, if any, precip from the last week was like and how is was bonding/reacting with the thick "crust". On my limited tour, lower down I found up to a couple of inches of precip from the last week; without taking a close look it felt like the initial bit had been wetter and bonded ok to the previous snowpack, then was soft in the middle, then crusty/rain affected on top. As I got higher (which was also more S. and sun-affected in general) the whole upper snowpack was more consistent. So still waiting for a storm cycle starting off warmer then cooling and adding some light skiable stuff on top. The "crust" layer should support softer turns nicely in the future, just hope the bond will be good. In places where that thin "sandwich" layers of crust are currently, I'm guessing there is some metamorphism going on in the softer stuff, which may turn into a weak layer/combination of layers later when heavier snow is on top. But who knows, a lot of extrapolation here from a very small sample.

 

But get some of that corn!

Edited February 11, 2007 by crazy_t

[ilookeddown]

Shit, I was one ridge over and it was breakable crust and socked in all day. It sucked!

[wolfs]

Up on Kendall Pk slopes, the new snow was less than an inch of instacorn. It was wet and had been in the sun awhile. Some of it was pinwheeling spontaneously so I am not sure was bonding that well. Had it been 6" rather than an inch it probably would be clinkering up all over. The layer under was still pretty hard ice despite the temp because the instacorn was taking the hit from the sun.