Quick report
- Aspect
- Northeast
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall, Wind Loading, Cracking, Collapsing, Rapid Warming, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 3383 m
- Slope Angle
- 25°
The clues were obvious today and we tailored our skiing to suit what our surroundings were telling us. Still great powder skiing, well worth a couple of laps. Have fun out there.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>While not a lot at the study plot, the wind has transported large amounts of wet, heavy snow on top of an already stressed snowpack.</p> <p>35 cm of wind transport snow on top of 40cm of dense compacted snow....this is the slab and it is big. I can't count how many collapses we heard and felt today.</p>
Up side down pack right now. 150cm at Coyote Chutes. 35cm of new and heavy wind transport sitting on top of 40cm of well consolidated snow which rests on top of loose facets, a small crust layer, and then facets to the ground. Was unable to perform shovel load tests due to the column collapsing while cutting the back of it out to isolate it from the rest of the snow pack. As my partner and I turned to leave we instigated a collapse that sounded more like rolling thunder. Luckily this area is not steep enough for an avalanche. Truly scary.