Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
What a treat, the storm snow was low-density and extra fluffy. Sluffs were the most common avalanche problem encountered below ~11,400ft. A cycle of small dry loose and small storm slabs occurred early this morning or last night. There is a large amount of snow available for transport once winds pick back up.
Mostly dry loose avalanche conditions observed . Shooting cracks on a west-facing slope at 11,000ft.Weather
- Cloud Cover
- obscured
- Wind Loading
- light
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
Light snow in the afternoon with little additional accumulation. Light winds at 12,000ft. HST 33cm near the base of Coneys. HST ~45cm at the top of Washington Gulch.
Snowpack
The recent storm snow was low-density and mostly created a dry loose avalanche problem on steep slopes. Above 11,000ft on Mt Baldy, I encountered some wind effect in the new snow, but a couple of steep south-facing test slopes didn't produce any cracking. Shovel tilt tests still produced results near the bottom of the storm snow.
Snowpack structure near and below 11,400ft on W, NE, and E-facing slopes all looked horrible and untrustworthy. However, the recent low-density storm snow was not currently reactive on those weak faceted interfaces, as the slab component was lacking.
The most notable snowpack observation was the large amounts of snow available for transport once the winds pick up. During a late afternoon clearing, I could see some wind effect in the alpine through the spotting scope.
Avalanche
- Size
- D2
- Type
- SS
- Aspect
- W
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 12000 ft
Many small dry loose and storm slabs ran on steep slopes either last night or early this morning. Clearing in the late afternoon revealed a couple of glimpses of Agusta and Minural Point with small avalanches that were long-running and probably accumulating some volume. A pair of small storm slabs were observed on Gothic Mountain, they gouged into old, weak snow and became large in size.