Quick report
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>There were some small sluffs/slides of dry loose snow on the steepest terrain coming off Santiago Ridge, but all of these slides had an inch or two of snow on them, so they must have occurred Thursday or Friday. Nothing was noted on our tour today, no cracking, no settlement, no sluffs, it was very quiet from a stability perspective. Hasty pits indicated all sorts of weak layers and a few crusts under our feet, but we saw no activity. </p>
I want to thank the Powderbird guides we ecountered today for the consideration they showed us. They asked about our ski plans between our first and 2nd laps and although they did a lot of skiing in Mineral Fork today, they left the area we were skiing to us and some other backcountry parties.
Snowpack
The new snow this week has settled out to about 8-10" in Mineral Fork. It was more dense than might normally be expected for such cold conditions, but this provided body and flotation that made for good riding. At the 7-9.5k elevations of this tour there was little to no wind effect in the snow.