Quick report
- Aspect
- North
- Red Flags
- Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 3078 m
- Slope Angle
- 29°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>I've seen worse snowpack structure but this was the only red flag in the area traveled today. </p>
Recent avalanche on a 40°+, east facing slope around 10,100.
Traveled the north half of the compass from 7400-10,300. Although I was finding a generally stable snowpack today, the surface snow was sluffing on steeper slopes due to a weakening snow surface. This and the presence of buried persistent weak layers will be something to keep in mind with the upcoming storm. Also of note were instabilities I found at the ground due to large grain basal facets (photo of facets on a 3mm grid). With medium to hard effort I did get CT's and ECT's to fail at the ground. Deep slab instabilities are not out of the question.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>I've been finding several weak interfaces in the upper 30cm (12") of the pack in my travels over the last couple of weeks. Column tests reflect medium effort to fail with Q2 and Q3 shears. No propagation on ECT tests. These layers will be something to watch with added the added water weight of the next storm though. </p>
Supportable conditions are making sled and ski travel easy.