Quick report
- Collapsing
- isolated
The goal of today's tour was to continue to assess the persistent slab problem on south and north aspects and see how the storm snow from earlier in the week was bonding, as well as observe natural avalanches that occurred earlier in the week. We succeeded in documenting several more natural slab avalanches, mostly D2 that likely occurred 1/12-13 before clouds rolled in and diminished visibility today. We chose a mellower tour and stayed off steeper terrain to let the snowpack heal for a couple more days. Improved conditions with smooth and mostly supportable snow and poor snowpack structure defined our tour today. The landscape at Hatcher's is either scoured down to ridges or loaded from strong southeast winds and new snow, which built stiff slabs sitting over weak facets in many locations.
The only sign of instability we observed today was isolated cracking on the up track to Microdot. We did not observe any new avalanches today or experience any cracking.Weather
- Air Temp
- 17
- Cloud Cover
- scattered
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Recent Snowfall
- 0
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
Today's sun in the forecast quickly diminished, turning to clouds with moderate temps in the upper teens with calm to light winds from the southeast.
Snowpack
We dug numerous hand shears throughout the tour today with moderate to hard results. Below 3500' we found 6-12" thick cohesive slabs sitting on weak sugary facets. Above 3500' we found old wind slabs on cross loaded features 4-6" thick that were mostly stubborn. The snowpack structure is poor. We dug on a south aspect at 4300' with a height of snow of 70cm. See pit wall photo.