Elephant's Hump

Despite the poor visibility from the blowing snow on Elephants Hump, we could still see enough of the terrain to identify at least four persistent slab avalanches that likely failed early on Saturday. 

The weak snowpack structure that contributed to these avalanches also remained prevalent in this area. Each time we plunged a pole into the snow or stepped off our skis on N-NE-facing slopes, we sank through the new snow and felt soft, weak snow below it. We got unstable test results in a quick snowpit near one of these avalanches. We also triggered shooting cracks in protected areas and in wind-loaded places today (see instability section for details)

In addition to the evidence of ongoing persistent slab problems, today's blowing snow added to existing wind slabs and built new ones. Most of the latest wind slabs remained small and shallow, but one heavily wind-loaded test slope already had a new wind slab 8 to 12 inches deep. 

We triggered shooting cracks that failed on facets below the recent snow up to 8 ft long in protected terrain and cracks that failed within the storm snow up to 12-15 ft long on wind-loaded test slopes. We also saw the remains of at least four persistent slab avalanches that failed naturally sometime on Saturday. As we drove home, we saw a wet loose avalanche that had hit the road around Emerald Bay.