Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Cracking, Collapsing
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Visible wind transport when the wind gusted up, although it looked like the majority of the available loose snow has already been blown around by this point. Wind slabs were patchy, but by tip-toeing to the edge of one I was able to trigger some shooting cracks that propagated over and up several meters. I also observed some isolated small collapses in wind slabs in the flats. </p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>The largest wind slabs appeared to be on NW facing above 10,000, but were present through out NE through NW.</p> <p>I was unable to get any of the hard slabs that were isolated & small enough for me to comfortably play with to actually move, but they had enough energy to propagate cracks several meters and cause small collapses in the wind-affected flats. </p>
Pockets of harder wind slab throughout the upper elevation terrain, with some softer pockets of wind deposit and some areas scoured. The wind slabs were generally 2-4" thick with some up to about 6", and on top of loose, low density facets.
In less wind affected areas I was getting occasional 2+' penetration in soft facets over rocks even with skins on, but mostly supportable snow.