We thrashed our way up and down to treeline on Mt. Field on Thursday Dec.
29. Absolutely terrible travelling with collapsing crust over facets,
impenetrable alder in the slidepath and a mess of downed timber and
thickets in the trees. The travel got better in the open near treeline but
was very scary with continuous whoomphing as a buried SH layer collapsed
underfoot . In a pit on a north facing slope where there was continuous
fog while the SH formed during the middle of November, the collapsing layer
(Nov 26) is down about 60 cm in a 110 HS. It measures 15-20mm and is very
well preserved: CTE 5-10 sudden collapse and RB3 on a 25 degree slope. Also
observed was a thin twin SH layer about 35 down (Dec 19th) that would also
give clean shears but not until after the lower layer had failed. The
October crust was still present at the bottom of the pit but produced no
consistent results. This snowpack sounds much more similar to the interior.
It is the first pit where we have observed the Nov 26 SH the Rockies since
mid December as it has more or less facetted away on the east side of the
divide.
Brad White
UIAGM/ACMG Mountain Guide (See attached file: MtField SH 20051229.jpg)
MtField SH 20051229.jpg
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