Quick report
- Collapsing
- specific
I experienced muffled collapses on some slopes, none of which seemed to travel terribly far. I did not observe associated cracks on the surface
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
Late afternoon/evening weather obs: Overcast to obscured skies with intermittent light rain/drizzle/mist up to around 8,600 or 8,700' and wet snow falling above. Light winds out of the S, gently blowing up the ridge.
Snowpack
This was a late day tour to check in on warmth/wet-related issues. There were a few roller ball swarms present on steep cuts above the roads, but no actual slides. There was moisture visible at the snow surface from rain and ambient warmth from highway level (~7,500') up to above 8,000 feet. Above this the snow surface was still quite moist, but I wasn't seeing visible water between snow grains. Several crusts exist in the upper snowpack on solars (most of what I traveled) and these had become moist but were still holding up strength, in the areas I traveled it was unlikely to encounter a wet snow problem deeper than that upper 5-10 cm. Wet problems are likely to become worse, given the weather forecast.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1.5
- Aspect
- SE
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 8100 ft
Low confidence on the date of occurrence on these. I could see several small but wide avalanches that failed in the terraced terrain above Horse Creek. Based on appearance of the crowns these likely failed on the 1/6 weak layer.