Thursday April 27, 2023
The Mercury News —
The final snowpack survey of the year took a bit more effort for the PG&E team at Lassen Volcanic National Park.
In the dense, late April snow, PG&E hydrographers drilled through 211 inches of snowpack Tuesday to reach the gravel parking lot of the Lassen Peak trailhead — by jumping on their equipment like a pogo stick.
“At many other sites we can core many samples by hand. At this site, we have to jump on the sampler to use our full body weight to get it down,” said PG&E Hydrographer Dan Stephens. “We’ve already broken gear this morning.”
Stephens said Lassen Peak represents 3% of the Feather River watershed, and one of the stations measured 211 inches of snow, equivalent to 118 inches of water.