December 11
Porter fork to Gobblers Knob
Elevations, slope angles and aspects
6200-10400', angles over 35°, north facing aspects.
Snow conditions
2" light density cap over several inches of denser snow over a soggy rain saturated base at the trail head(cabin owner is still driving the lower road).
Rain-snow-line was around 8k with dense snow over lying the lighter density from early last week.
Storm snow total of around a foot. Total snow pack on the face of Gobblers is 26-30".
There was a pesky northwest wind blowing up the face which was scouring and densifying the recent snow. Some isolated cracking was observed with ski cuts.
A lot of graupel in the new which would sluff a bit.
Skiing was punchy in the wind zone.
Weather
Partly cloudy to overcast skies, coo temperatures, wind from the west, gusting over 30 mph in exposed terrain.
Evaluation
Good stability in the area traveled. No natural activity was observed.
Would expect some active isolated wind drifts on the lee side. These could easily break on the old light density snow.
Recrystallization is likely in the shallow snow pack, both, near surface and at the ground, dependent on weather.
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