Drifting snow in the Incline Peak area.

We toured the Incline Peak and Slab cliffs area today, mainly to look at drifting snow conditions from NE winds. NE winds were observed to increase in speed as the day progressed, verifying with this morning's weather forecast. We were also able to see that significant differences in cloud cover existed over the northern and southern portions of the forecast area during the morning hours. Very clear condition observed to the north.

Moderate amounts of scouring and drifting snow were observed along ridgetops under NE wind conditions. Shallow wind slabs up to 4 inches thick existed in lee areas along ridgetops in this area. These slabs were very dense (P+ hard) and difficult to trigger. I had to work hard to get the cracks shown in the photo. Looking at the snow under the wind slabs, we observed heavily rimed snow. At first glance, it looked similar to surface hoar, but on closer inspection, it was not. These rimed crystals may have blown off of trees prior to the wind slab formation.

Digging a testpit at the noted lat/long (NNW aspect, 9,650') revealed the remains of the old Jan 4 PWL. In this area, it was fairly close to the snow surface from wind scouring (last photo). The now well rounded old facets were still 4F hard under a 4F to 1F hard overlying slab. No indications of ongoing instability on this layer with test scores of ECTN, CTX, and PST 100/100 when targeting the old Jan 4 layer.