We've started reporting them to Parrilla to increase his data sets. We sometimes put them on the report and also started an IG account mtmansfield_snowobservations where we only post photos of the readings as a way to archive them. We have been taking photos of the readings and keeping data for over a decade and honestly, its a shame we didn't start archiving it more in the past.
We are just looking to keep things transparent and to preserve the idea of measuring snowfall and depth in the same locations as often as possible.
Regarding High Road depth... this is the first season I've seen that site stay with the fabled stake and even slightly exceed it at times. In all other seasons, that spot can run even a foot or two below the stake. However, we have done snow survey analysis there with the 60" Adirondack Snow Sampler (when the snowpack was a bit lower) and the numbers checked out. It appears to be legit.
I have a few hypothesis, primarily going back to the November upslope snows that really built the base up... and that is that the Gondola terrain for whatever reason seemed noticeably deeper than the Quad side after a few of those storms. It has generally felt a lot snowier from like the FourRunner Quad northward towards the Notch, and I think that's normal, but it has felt exaggerated at times this year.
Its definitely interesting, but man, there is still some areas of open water in there and that whole High Road zone from Rim Rock across to Cliff Trail and Perry just has a ton of snow on the ground. When you see the open water spots, its a legit like 6 feet down. Its sort of creepy at times, ha. We were skiing the Strawberry Fields below Upper Perry/Cliff intersection and there's a drainage in there with holes that look like they are 8 feet deep wells. It's impressive but certainly not something you want to fall into head first.
The depth stake was stuck in the mid/upper 60s for what felt like two weeks, but finally have movement upward after this last cycle.
Ticked from 68” to 70” and then 74”.
One skier from MLK weekend found there way in here and left a track just behind the depth stake… not a fan of it but it’s filling in again.