Clockwise from left: Britta, Justin, Heidi, David, and Melissa gather around the first snow pit with the necessary tools: Shovel, snow kit and notebooks.
Bethany gathers a snow sample while Britta holds the scale.
Heidi and Britta use the snow tube (PVC pipe with a sharpened bottom) to take a core sample of the snow pack at the top of Smugglers Notch.
SUMMARY
The depth of the snow pack ranges from about 40 cm (at the parking lot, pit one) to well over a meter (at the top, pit three). The temperature of the snow pack tends to be a little below 0 C at the top, then dip in the middle of the pack because it holds the cold temperatures of the previous night. The top is warmer than the middle because it is heated by the sun. The bottom is warmer than the middle because it takes warmth from the ground. The ground itself is consistently 0 C.
The density charts show how the snow pack is divided into various layers with different characteristics. It is important to take the density of each layer, to help forecast avalanches. A dense layer on top of a fluffy layer (as at pit three) is a weak layer that could avalanche.
This has been an icy year up at Smugglers Notch, as you can see from the thick layers of ice (blue lines) on the charts. This phenomenon is caused by rain falling, soaking a few centimeters into the snow, then freezing. The ice layers are thick and numerous this year because of the large amount of rainfall followed by freezes.