Calm, Warm Day on Mt. Judah

We toured in the Mt. Judah area to look for any signs of wind-loading that may have occurred during the night. We started by looking at lower elevation test slopes and noticed no signs of wind transport. Surface hoar still existed on the surface and no new cornices had formed. We also did not find any wind-slabs on test slopes that would typically get wind-loaded. Moving into higher elevation and more exposed terrain along Wild Flower Ridge, we still did not find evidence of new wind-loading. In more sheltered areas, we used hand pits to see if the buried surface hoar was still present in the area. We did find a buried surface hoar layer, but it had started to disintegrate and tests did not show sign of instability on it nor did it have a slab layer above it. Once we got to the summit ridgeline, we still did not find any evidence of new wind loading. Surface hoar still existed on the top of the snowpack along the ridgeline. We did not find any signs of instability on our tour. We did see plenty of soft snow on all aspects including the windward slopes. If the winds do increase they could move this snow around. A thin sun-crust had started to form on some sun-exposed slopes.

Photo 1: Surface hoar still present on the summit ridge of Judah indicating that the winds did not get strong enough to destroy it last night.

Photo 2: Ski tracks on the windward side of Judah indicating that soft snow is still available for transport if the winds increase.