Quake lake

I skied south of Quake Lake today, and we took the time to dig a couple pits along the way. We dug our first one on a west aspect at 7250’, and picked a big meadow to see if we could find the buried surface hoar we found above Hebgen yesterday. I jumped off my skis like I was jumping into a lake, and sank straight to the bottom. Total snow depth was 110 cm, and the surface hoar was not nearly as obvious as it was in our pit above Hebgen. An extended column failed at ECTP12 on the surface hoar, which had much smaller crystals than what we found yesterday. Still, it is not very trustworthy. The pit also failed at ECTP21 on the interface with large facets 20 cm off the ground.

A second pit on a west aspect at 8600’ also failed at ECTP12 on buried surface hoar, but total snow depth was 125 cm and supported our weight well without skis. We observed numerous point releases that entrained enough snow to possibly knock a skier over, but none stepped down and fractured as a slab.