Rain in Hasler

Riding quality was:

OK

Snow conditions were:

• Hard
• Heavy
• Wet

We rode:

• Cut blocks
• Dense trees
• Mellow slopes
• Open trees

We stayed away from:

• Alpine slopes

The day was:

• Cloudy
• Stormy
• Warm
• Wet

Avalanche conditions

• 30cm + of new snow, or significant drifting, or rain in the last 48 hours.
• Rapid temperature rise to near or above 0°C or wet surface snow.

Well the lower parts of Hasler did not see that 15-25 cm of new snow Friday night. Below 1400 m it never froze, and there was rain in the late afternoon. We rode towards Otto, and the creeks and crossings were all open and tricky. The snowpack in the trees was about 100 cm deep, with 4 cm of wet fresh on top of a 5 cm heavy melt crust that’s poorly bonded to the snow beneath. There are several facet and rime layers in the top 60 cm of snow, and, at least in our pit, the Oct and Nov crust layers are now just one thick layer of facets and trash at ground level.

We had results in the low moderate range on ground (CTM11 down 90 SC x2) but no propagation on an extended column test.

This rain and melt crust will be the next layer of concern once it finally gets buried by new snow.

Precip began about 2 pm. It was wet snow above 1300 m, rain lower down. It rained all the way out to the trucks at dark.