Tuckerman Ravine

We left Hermit Lake around 2pm and skinned up the Tuckerman Ravine Trail. Our goal was to get a better idea of the distribution of wind slabs as well as assess reactivity. Travel up the trail was significantly easier than yesterday with settlement and wind stiffening contributing to a more supportive snowpack underfoot. No cracking or collapsing was observed. 

Just before the rescue cache, we veered off to the right to get a better view of the bowl and stay off the floor of the ravine. Visibility improved enough for us to get a good visual on a new crown line across the headwall. Forecasters in the ravine yesterday at noon did not see this crown and we estimated it happened within the last 24 hours. The crown had started to fill in with wind-blown snow but appeared to be at least a foot deep in places and was approximately 330ft long, extending across the lip and most of the headwall. Debris was widespread across the floor of the ravine. 

Due to wind and cold temps, we elected not to dig a pit and went back to Hermit Lake before doing a short tour into the base of Hillman’s Highway to look at debris from a crown seen in the upper lookers left part of the Y that we observed while skinning up to the ravine. Despite difficult visibility yesterday, we think both of these avalanches had not occurred by noon yesterday, leading us to believe that increased stress from wind loading caused these paths to cycle naturally within the last 24 hours. 

Looking ahead to tomorrow, the trend for the hazard rating is decreasing with less and less snow available for transport, and continued scouring and stiffening of surface snow from the wind.