Weather
35 cm of relatively dense snow that fell yesterday and last night. A few very light snow showers this morning. Minimal wind drifting observed today, evidence of previous drifting. Sun started breaking through the clouds this afternoon and created a greenhouse feel. cloud cover: broken; wind loading: previous; rain elevation (ft): N/A; recent snowfall (cm): 35; snow avail for transport: moderate amounts
Snowpack
Prior to ski cutting numerous slabs along the top of Schuylkill Ridge, we observed minimal signs of instability on our uproute. We targeted a few steep, windloaded slopes and observed minor cracking, both a few inches thick and up to 18" deep on the 4/26 crust, less than 2' long. We also noticed a couple of small collapses while breaking trail.
Avalanche
We triggered numerous soft slabs breaking about a foot deep on northerly aspects at 11,500' on Schuylkill Ridge. Each of the 4 starting zones that we ski cut produced avalanches, D1.5 to D2 in size. We could see a few small naturals that ran during the storm on higher elevation slopes.