Quick report
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall, Wind Loading
Today I was pleasantly surprised by these stability and quality of the snow on the Park City ridgeline. I performed an ECT and I had propagation at ECT14, a collapse above the Xmas crust at ECT17 and the entire column at ECT 24. Things skied much better than expected and the dense and spongy layer of new snow kept me from touching the crust in all but one or two turns. Definitely the best day of the year and yet, definitely staying off steeper slopes on the N half of the compass until things settle a bit.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>A dense layer of new, wind-drifted snow lay at the top of the snowpack I examined at 9370 on the NE facing slope. This is atop the Xmas crust which appears very supportable at this point. In steeper terrain it would be say to see a slide entraining a lot of this new snow and running fast and hot on the crust. Earlier while skinning a steeper N facing slope I noted that the crust quickly created slide for life conditions when the new snow was pushed off. </p> <p> The junk is still in the trunk, lurking below the crust. It seems like it’s strengthening, but If you manage to get the crust to fail, the party is over. </p>