Quick report
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall, Wind Loading, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Lots of pole poking unsurprisingly spoke to widespread facets and rotted snow on northerly aspects. I dug a few hand pits to test if the wind surfaces were reactive and nothing really popped on me, everything seemed pretty tame. No collapses or odd reactions on test slopes - I think think there wasn't much snow to transport in recent winds before the new snow today. We'll have to see what the wind does tonight, but our initial impression was that the new snow might behave pretty nicely it is quite light and also seemed to bond pretty well to the old surfaces.</p>
Variable wind affected old snow surface on our tour up. Even the trees had lots of wind damage.
Let it snow!!
New snow completely filled in our skinner coming back out of Gold Basin.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Still plenty of facets out there waiting for a new load to awaken the beast. I don't think the new snow will awaken this unless the wind really loads up some start zones.</p> <p>The wind is picking up again on Laurel and is likely to create some reactive slabs with the new snow now available for transport if that continues. Have to cross our fingers that uncle gusty doesn't get too crazy tonight. If the winds stick to the forecasted 10-15 mph, I'd call tomorrow moderate danger rating. If they crank up, then I'd probably go considerable.</p>
Initially we were on highly variable old snow surfaces with mainly a mix of wind surfaces and occasional soft snow in sheltered spots. As the storm progressed we were stoked to get about 5" of snow during our 3 laps on tele gold. Based on the timing of the snow and the observed 3.5" at the snow stake (now at 5") on our way down, I wouldn't be surprised if the higher elevations ended up with closer to 8" of snow all said and done. Tomorrow should be pretty fun up there!