Mt Hood Meadows/Heather Canyon

The snow is deep making the tree-well hazard one of the greatest problems out there. I found 13 inches of low-density new snow on Monday morning and touchy wind slabs on leeward test slopes. Very large artillery-triggered avalanches in wind-loaded alpine terrain serve as a reminder of the potential size of avalanches at upper elevations. 

Intentially triggered a small slab on a wind-loaded test slope at 6600 ft, NE aspect.

13 inches of low density, blower snow fell on the evening of 3/3. This new snow was accompanied by strong WSW winds. Due to this, I found touchy wind slabs that failed 1-2 ft deep on leeward, test slopes. A very large avalanche caught my eye in the Basalts ( Mt Hood Meadows terrain) at 7300 ft, NE aspect. According to patrol this avalanche broke 10 ft deep and ran during the morning artillery mission.

Strong winds stripped windward aspects leaving variable, rough surfaces on the west aspects of Pea Gravel. More sheltered terrain held excellent power, right-side-up powder skiing.

I dug on both East and West aspects. On, the east aspects I found a very deep snowpack (nearly 400 cm) and the February crust 6+ ft below the surface and well bonded to the upper snowpack ( E, 5500 ft). Deep tap test didn't produce any results (DTN).

On the west aspect, I dug on at 6600 ft, I found a shallower snowpack (260 cm), and found the February crust 100 cm below the surface. In this location, I did notice some slightly weaker rounding facets adjacent to these crusts. It didn't produce any ECT results with traditional loading steps but did propagate on tap 35 from the shoulder.