Quick report
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Heavy Snowfall, Cracking, Collapsing, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>We checked a lot of these boxes today. Natural widespread avalanche cycle, heavy recent snow fall, collapsing, cracking, and whompfing everywhere. Definitely a spooky morning with lots of noise coming from the slopes.</p>
Image 1 - Broken flagged tree from recent large avalanche. Note the lack of snow covering the downed tree. Indicative of recent activity.
Image 2 - approaching for crown profile
Image 3 - shallow end of crown
Image 4 - Profile of crown (127-186 cm)
Image 5 -Multiple well connected avalanches naturally triggered over night.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Lots of snow out there and it was pretty high density at the beginning. It may look inviting, but this load will step down and trigger our deeper persistent weak layers if the right trigger is found. Today there were multiple natural avalanches observed including one with crown depth of 127-186 cm that stepped down to our December 16 rain crust which has facets growing on it. The deepest crown observed also took out a 18' diameter tree. There is definitely potential for some large destructive avalanches. The Persistent Weak Layer is still out there acting like a loaded gun, just waiting for someone to pull the trigger.</p> <p>Lots of snow available for transport right now. If we see the winds pick up this could create large wind slabs that will have the potential to over load our recovering snow pack and create LARGE avalanches. Like the naturals that were produced over night in storm slabs, with enough loading we could potential see another natural cycle with large destructive avalanches. The Persistent Weak Layer is still out there acting like a loaded gun, just waiting for someone to pull the trigger.</p>
Lots of new snow that came in wet and then the temps dropped and produced some lighter density snow. Fun skiing/riding conditions so long as it is appropriate terrain.