Baker Creek Snow Survey 2019

 The end of February meant it was time to head up Baker Creek to go measure snow for the NRCS Snow Survey. Fortunately this year we were able to use the park's UTV to get shuttled up there, which was great, because the snow was deep. Can you see the 8,000 foot elevation sign in the photo above? We're usually avoiding rocks in this area, and this time we were skiing on top of bushes!

We had some new participants and they quickly go the hang of measuring the snow depth and weighing the snow tube so that we could figure out the snow weight equivalent (SWE). This SWE lets us know how much moisture is in the snow pack.

When we get a core, we push the metal tube to the ground, and we know we've reached the ground when we pull up a little soil or grass. But we don't want to weigh that, so we have to remove it.

The Baker Creek snow courses have been measured since 1942, making them one of the longest data sets for Great Basin National Park. There are three snow courses, and in the photo below, we've moved up to the second one, about 9,200 feet elevation.

We lucked out with a beautiful day!

As we got higher, it got snowier.

In 2005, with a 300% snowpack, this avalanche changed the landscape.

On this day, we ended up with about 140% average snow water equivalent. It's great to be above average!

You can find out more about the snow survey program here.
And this is a link to the Nevada Snow Survey Program and the monthly report. Our photo made the front cover of the March 1 report!

Way to go, snow surveyors! It was a great day out. (Photo credit: Great Basin Heritage Area)