June Lake Area- Snowpack and Weather conditions-Chicken Wing

THE VIDEO IS FROM FEB 21ST, I mispoke in video and said FEB 22nd -apologies.

It was a perfect splitter blue Sierra day with a light refresher of snow from yesterday softening the edges of wind worn snowpack. There was upwards of 5cm of new snow within the shady aspects of Chicken wing today, with a bit more (10cm) in wind loaded pockets. Still variable between a bit of breakable crust, and firm sections where more wind exposed, but the little dusting of snow made skiing much more pleasant today. Massive settlement cones observed showing close to 70cm in some places. 

I did not find any wind slab or anything of significance at the top of Chicken Wing Mountain. SE-S aspects had warmed a bit by 1pm, but only the top 2-3cm were moist and there were no loose wet concerns today.  It was nearly dead calm in my area today and the San Joaquin Ridge did not look to be enduring any high winds. The mammoth funnel looked to have a bit of flagging from a far with winds coming from the East.

I dug a pit on a NNW aspect, 9700ft, just to track the persistent issues of the resident weaker basal faceted. Faceted snow in this location was rounding, but still was soft and loose 4F-F beneath the robust 1F-Pencil hard slab (<90cm)from the late January storm. In this location, snowpack looked to be relatively stable and benign at this point, but the upside down nature of the snowpack remains.

It was 29degF @ 1200pm @ 9700ft. calm to light breeze

Snow pit @ 9,700ft, NNW Aspect, 32deg slope

HS: 170cm

CT11 Q2 @ 160cm

CT17 Q1 @ 35cm

ECTN12  @ 160cm

DT26 Q1 @ 20cm on NOV melt freeze crust