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Guide to the Photographs of Snow and Cloud Formations in the High Sierra / Taken by Fred A. Camp [graphic], ca. 1956

BANC PIC 1976.062--B

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List of Items

item No. 1

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Aqueduct near Olancha, in Owens Valley, Inyo County

Additional Note

Timber line at 10,300 feet; also extreme high altitude forest to 11,200 feet.

Snow level 8,000 feet

Time, early December

Olancha Peak, elevation 12,135 feet U.S.G.S.

item No. 2

White-Inyo Range, Owens Valley, Inyo County

Additional Note

The low clouds are rare condensation clouds which do not last more than 20 minutes and occur from 30 to 100 feet above the crest. Thin stratus and stratocumulus clouds are above. In the foreground are the Alabama Hills, the oldest known remnants of a mountain range.

Snow level 9,600 feet

Time, mid-March

item No. 3

Central Sierra Nevada, Mono County

Additional Note

In the foreground is crystalline-settling snow with four suncrusts. The uppermost crust is covered with three inches of sand snow, with a density of from four to eight percent. Crystals are from cirrus and altostratus clouds.

Ground elevation 8,200 feet

Time, late January

item No. 4

Central Sierra Nevada, Upper Long Valley, Mono County

Additional Note

Crystalline-settled snow, with snow cornice in the center, and partially eroded wind-slab on the right. Ice-lace underneath the cornice and to the left of stream flow. Ice-lace under the overhanging crystalline-settled snow is an unusual snow feature. The wind-slab snow in the shadow on the right is the first phase in the formation of desiccated snow.

Ground elevation 9,300 feet

Time, late February

item No. 5

Central Sierra Nevada, Mono County

Additional Note

An avalanche and wind action has created this basin of partially recrystallized drift snow, which is approximately 20 feet deep. Arctic willows in the foreground are seldom found in the Sierra Range.

Ground elevation 11,200 feet

Time, early July

item No. 6

Central Sierra Nevada, Mono County

Additional Note

This snow chute is approximately 1/2 mile long and from 5 to 20 feet deep.

Ground elevation 10,600 feet

Time, early July

item No. 7

Central Sierra Nevada, Mono County

Additional Note

Found on the sides and crest of the ice-carved canyon are remnant banks of seasonal snow.

Elevation from ground to crest 9,800 feet to 13,000 feet

Time, early August

item No. 8

Central Sierra Nevada, Sawtooth Ridge

Additional Note

Just left of center, uppermost crest, are four cirque glaciers, and to the right below the crest is an ice scoured depression with a defunct ice body. A defunct ice body is a cirque glacier in the dying stage.

Ground elevation from 12,400 to 13,200 feet

Time, August 29

item No. 9

Central Sierra Nevada, Palisade Glacier, Inyo County

Additional Note

The lateral moraine in the center of the picture divides the Palisade Glacier. This Glacier is approximately 1-1/2 square miles in area and is more than 150 feet deep. When measured in 1955, its recession was 83 feet in 30 years. It is flanked by 14,000-foot peaks.

Ground elevation 12,700 feet

Time, late July

item No. 10

Central Sierra Nevada, Mono County

Additional Note

First of three pictures showing phenomenon of desiccated snow; this picture showing the preliminary stage.

Desiccated snow is an inert homogeneous mass of névé formed by solar operation combined with other atmospheric factors of removing capillary water from ice crystals of a settled snowfield at high altitude.

Ground elevation 11,600

Time, mid-July

item No. 11

Central Sierra Nevada, Inyo County

Additional Note

Desiccated snowfield, final stage, in foreground, showing shadow of spired peak, south portion Mt. Muir massif (elevation 14,025 feet). Interesting shadow of cloud is in background.

Ground elevation 13,604 feet.

Time, July 22

item No. 12

Central Sierra Nevada, Inyo County

Additional Note

Desiccated snowfield, final stage. The serrated sun blades are triangular in shape, and are 32 inches high graduating in thickness from 8 inches at the bottom to 2 inches at the top.

Midpoint ground elevation 14,200 feet.

Time, July 22

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