Quick report
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Wind Loading, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Various older avalanches, some from even last week, but all were blown back in, so depth and timing uncertain. Also, assume there was activity that is now hidden. No collapsing today, but trails were well broken and a fair number of tracks. There were reports of collasing yesterday from yesterday.</p>
Pit seemed to be in a fairly representative spot, northerly facing slope, about 8,200'. the weakest snow seemed to be directly beneath the mid pack rain crust. Seems to be another case where the storm didn't produce enough snow/water weight to create a wide spread avalanche cycle, instead most slopes seem to be left hanging, just waiting for a trigger.
Wind hammered upper ridge line.
Heavy riming along high ridge line.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Snowpack structure is terrible - northerly facing slope, all elevations, lower 1/2 to 1/3 of the snow pack is basically facets. Faceted layers near the ground extend around at least onto southeast facing slopes. </p>
Bring some ear plugs - one of the noisiest runs I've had in a while - 4,000 vertical of rime crust, from summit to car. Yet counter-intuitively, the skiing was just fine. It's a brittle, weak crust, so you ski right through it. No complaints from me.