Tahoe National Forest Sierra Avalanche Center

Snowpit dug in open wind protected below treeline terrain. Potential layer of concern is for our next loading event coming this weekend.

Pit dug in near treeline terrain to look at faceting in the upper snowpack.

We added an 10-15cm slab to the snowpack and ran a PST on the loose layer at 318 cm. Results: artificially loaded PST 23/100 END @318 cm

Monitoring upper snowpack with forecasted storm this weekend.

Artificially 10-15cm loaded PST- APST 20/100 END @143cm after 30 minutes.

Pit dug in below treeline terrain protected from NE wind events. Old surface crusts below recent storm snow are variable throughout this terrain.

Pit dug in wind protected below treeline terrain specifically for a loaded PST on the surface facet layer. Using a 10 cm thick artificial slab constructed on the snow surface using disaggregated snow and allowed to sinter for 1.25 hrs, the tese scored Loaded PST 29/100 SF @ 133cm.

Loaded (10cm artificial slab) PST 30/100 SF @ 192 cm

Pit dug in below treeline terrain to look at upper snowpack faceting that exists at and below treeline on N aspects. Loaded PST with artificial 10cm slab added to snow surface and allowed to sinter for 30 min produced PST 40/100 SF at 140 cm. The majority of the data collection for this pit was performed by Daryl Teittinen with my assistance.

Pit dug in shaded near treeline terrain. Atypically shallow snowpack for the area at the current time.