NSF Rubicon

Calm wind and right around freezing temperatures today on Rubicon Peak. We were able to find the 12/12 rain crust as well as faceted snow above it. At the ridgetop we found widespread wind loading, but no signs of instability.

Along the skin track up Rubicon we traveled through North, Northeast and East facing below treeline terrain before reaching the ridge. Throughout this area many quick hand pits found faceted snow above the 12/12 rain crust. The facetet snow was F-4F in hardness varying 10-20 cm thick above the 2 cm thick rain crust. On closer inspection the faceted snow was a mixture of angular grains and rounding grains .5-1mm in size. Compression tests at 2 locations did not produce results suggesting likely propagation: CTN x2, CT23RP In middle of 4F FCmx @123 cm at this location (HS 149cm). 

At the ridgetop we observed sastruigi suggesting strong SW winds recently (Photo 1). Looking south toward Bliss Peak I observed alternating areas of wind loaded and wind scoured terrain on a NE aspect at ridgetop (Photo 2). The scoured area is downwind of a saddle at the ridgetop, whereas the loaded areas are leeward of rocky peaks on the ridge. This suggested to me that strong wind had been funnelled downslope through the saddle area moving snow and depositing it farther downslope than usual. 

We moved around to the leeward wind loaded area East of the summit and found a 2-5cm thick 1F hard breakable wind crust. Kicks and small ski cuts broke through the crust to softer snow below but did not result in any shooting cracks at that location. The wind crust extended downslope for 300 vertical feet or so well into the upper portion of our descent. No signs of instability were observed with it througout this area though. Aspects sheltered from wind and sun skied well.

Sorry about the narrated snowpit- Snowpilot was giving me trouble. I prefer the visual version!