Quick report
- Aspect
- North
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Wind Loading, Cracking
- Elevation
- 2591 m
- Slope Angle
- 27°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>North and northeast slopes below exposed ridgelines were wind loaded. We observed cracking in these areas and obvious signs of wind loading. We intentionally triggered a wind slab on a N facing slope at 8250' just below a ridgeline. It was about 300' wide and ranged from 6"-12" deep.</p>
We dug two snow pits in the top 1.2m of the snowpack in sheltered areas. We were hunting for weak interfaces within the top few feet of the snow to determine if new snow and wind slab avalanches were the only two avalanche problems we should be concerned with on the slopes we wanted to ski. We didn't find any weak layers in our pits. We found a few inches of new snow sitting on top of an right side up snowpack.
On the W aspects we found ourselves on today, we found a thin crust in wind sheltered areas and heavy wind stripping on the W facing ridgeline we traveled up. We only traveled in low and mid-elevation terrain today.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Shallow soft slabs of wind-drifted snow were found on N and NE slopes below exposed ridgelines. These areas were actively loading on our travels up the ridge. We ended up dropping into ski much lower than we had planned due to strong gusts and active wind loading.</p>