Observation: Douglas Island

Location: Wedding Bowl

Date:
Observer:
Route & General Observations

Went for a day tour up regular skin track in Wedding Bowl on Ben Stuart. High overcast made for challenging lighting conditions but snow was soft with minimal wind effects.

Weather & Snow Characteristics
Please provide details to help us determine the weather and snowpack during the time this observation took place.
Weather

High overcast, light snow. NE winds 10-15 mph

Snow surface

10cm of fresh on base of wind-pressed, settled powder.

Snowpack

Dug a pit at 2600' in Wedding Bowl. While testing the stability of the Thanksgiving Day crust we found the following:
- ~180cm total snow depth
- 110cm of 1 finger / pencil hardness consolidated snow above the Thanksgiving Day rain crust
- <5cm of 4 finger facets directly above the aforementioned rain crust
- ECTX (no movement during stability tests)

We suspect this location was wind loaded due to location and thickness of snow above crust.