Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
I climbed Mt Tallac today, not sure what to expect for conditions. I was cautiously optimistic. Further up, lookers right of the bowl at 9,500’, I dug a quick CT to see what was going on with the snow from the recent storms. HS 175 cm. The top 2 cm failed SP while isolating the column. It failed again CT19 non planar break @162 cm. CT26 NP @145 cm I pried the remaining block off with my shovel with some effort, getting a planar break at 100 cm which was about the depth of my pit(75 cm deep) I did not dig deep enough to observe the Jan2 PWL. The snow up top skied ok with the thin breakable crust. At about 7,500’ it changed for the worse to breakable crust. Below 7,200’ it was better with a supportable crust. I did not observe any other instabilities. no whumpfs. No sketchy windslabs. Just the shooting cracks in the top 2 cm ice crust and wind slab near the top. As I neared the ridge on a flatter section before the bowl about 9,400’, cracks were propagating in the top 2 cm layer which was 5 mm of dry snow on top of a 3mm crust on top of 1 cm soft snow which was reactive. I wonder what will happen to this layer when it gets new snow on top of it. I also saw debris from sluffs in the storm.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 27
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- light
- Rain Elevation
- 9,500
- Recent Snowfall
- 5
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Beautiful day. Calm winds at the summit.
Snowpack
HS 175 cm at 9,500'
Avalanche
On the way down at about 8,200’ I saw two small wet snow sluffs 15m wide, running about 50m with debris chunks up to 15 cm covered with fresh snow. They could have been skier triggered during the storm with wet surface snow. I did not have a chance to observe the crowns.