Observations from Incline Lake Peak

A wide variety of snow conditions and stratigraphy existed on Incline Lake Peak today. On the sun-exposed SE-S aspects 2-3 inches of wet surface snow existed on top of a supportable frozen layer of melt-freeze snow. Today's melting did not create enough wet snow for wet snow instabilities to form in this area.

On the shaded and sheltered N-NE aspects 6-10 inches of soft unconsolidated snow rests on top of a thin melt freeze crust. About 12-18 inches down in the snowpack a crust/facet combination does exist. The soft snow below this crust is not as soft or weak as the facets seen on Tamarack Peak on Friday. Numerous tests on a variety of slope in this area (ECTN 19, ECTN 22, ECTN 24, ECTN 29 - video) on on this layer all indicated that triggering a fracture remains unlikely in this layer and that if a fracture were to occur it would not travel very far.

Video: ECTN 29 on the March 6th facets. Video taken at these coordinates - 39.29873, -119.94251

Near and above treeline the N-NE aspect showed signs of minor scouring, but still had 4-6 inches of soft snow on them. 1-2 ft thick wind slabs still existed on the wind loaded N-NE aspects near ridgelines. These firm dense wind slabs rested on top of a layer of softer snow. Refrigerator sized cornice blocks dropped onto these winds slabs, ski cuts, and aggressively weighting the wind slabs did not produce any cracking or other signs of instability unless the slope had first been undercut. Extended column tests did indicate that if enough force could be applied to break the slab the resulting fracture could propagate along the layer of softer snow (ECTP 20, ECTP 23, ECTP 22 -video).

Video: ECTP 22 at the base a wind slab on a near treeline NE aspect.

Photo: Refrigerator sized cornice pieces dropped onto an adjacent test slope.

Photo 2: Slight wind scoured texture on a NE aspect along the summit ridgeline.

On the N-NE-E aspects that recieve any amount of sun a breakable crust of variable thickness existed on the surface.