Quick report
- Red Flags
- Rapid Warming
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>I was pretty wary of anything steep given the intense warming and gooeyness of the snow, and kept a close eye below me to avoid potential terrain traps. It's my recollection that wet slab avies like a little steeper terrain and indeed there were lots of rollerballs on 40ish degree slopes in the area that were off of due north, so I avoided those. But skiing lower/medium angle untracked goo is....okay. </p> <p>Then on the ridges, as per the forecast, the wind had been cranking pretty well and there was some good caky snow and a little bit of slab development. It seemed that the wind was from the SW which meant that it was sweeping up the especially gooey south faces, so maybe not as much snow to transport, but I was still a little wary of the north facing slabs off the ridgetops, so I either ski cut when possible (with no action) or avoided dropping into the sweet spots. </p> <p>I didn't see any action today, but I don't think it would have taken too much to get either a wet slide on all steep slopes on all aspects up to about 8500 and any aspect besides north above that, and the higher/bigger/more open north facing lines could have enough attached slabs to break somewhat bigly with the weight of a skier? and probably break above the skier....</p>
Looks like it won't be quite as warm tomorrow and cooler yet on Thursday so the wet slide potential will be lower, but all that gooey snow may then be slow to soften; it'll be safer but maybe a bit grim turning conditions. The high north snow may well maintain integrity, but today's slab development on high north may be stubborn and still a bit prickly over the next day or two?
Snowpack
Anything not due north >9k with some pitch was soggy early then zipper crusted as the shadows lengthened and the sun went behind the clouds.