Quick report
- Red Flags
- Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>I skied an interesting and relatively steep west/southwest open slope off one of the range's bigger peaks. On slopes > about 35 degrees between around 8200 - 9700' I experienced significant sloughing of pretty deep melt freeze crust (up to 2" thick in places). In other sections where the melt-freeze crust had naturally sloughed off previously, the base consisted of the old Christmas rime crust. Within mid-elevation (7500-8000) steeper (>40 degrees) rocky chutes the rotten snow was very fragile where it had not adhered to the underlying rocky substrate. I was forced to climb back out of one chute as it sloughed out from below me leaving only bare rock exposed. I bring all this up because it was a bit of a surprise after skiing January corn during my previous two tours without experiencing these conditions. With the weight of the new snow falling currently my concern is that some steeper south/southwest terrain may be prone to avalanching either atop the fragile melt-freeze layer (our recent surface) or to the ground as the facets give way. Folks venturing onto steeper south/west aspects at upper elevation terrain should be aware of the potential for sloughing and soft slabs which could run all the way to the ground, especially on terrain which is very rocky and has little vegetation, during and after this storm cycle. </p>