Quick report
- Aspect
- Northeast
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall, Wind Loading, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 2804 m
- Slope Angle
- 29°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Wet snow blown over a stout rain crust with sugar below? Sounds like a low probability, high consequence kind of red flag snowpack. </p>
I got to a very robust ECT 27 and this thing was just not moving, which really surprised me. We skied the driveway and didn’t touch the crust or anything else. Again, wind favored our route. But, while it all looked nice enough on top, I was still happy to be safely skiing low angle terrain without overhead hazard.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Heaviest snow I’ve skied in a while. Sitting on the Xmas eve crust I would be very suspicious of this new wind drifted dense, wet snow in any avalanche terrain. </p> <p>The aforementioned breeze combined with the new snow of the last few days and things are up to 2x the depth they were on Sunday. </p>
Stopped to perform an ECT at 9200’ on a roughly 28 degree slope facing NE. Total snow dept was a surprising 110cm. Granted we were on the leeward side, but this was slightly more than twice the snow depth I recorded in this area four days ago.
The snow was very damp and dense, almost like a wet spring storm. There now appears to be a heavy and dense wind slab sitting atop the Xmas eve crust. This layer skied surprisingly well today.