Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Cracking
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Just some isolated shallow wind slabs on the exposed ridges, but I was not seeing a lot of snow moving around overall. Not much else in the red flag department from my vantage point in Gold Hill today.</p>
A shallow 8-10" fresh wind slab along the Gold Hill ridge that I was able to trigger on a very small break over. I was not observing a lot of snow transport, but possibly there are isolated places where this set up was going on today.
A quick pit on this east facing slope in Gold Hill showing a couple of the recent crust layers, but I was not finding any weak snow issues around them. My column tests just smashed down with progressively harder hits.
Looked like some weather was moving in over the higher terrain further up the highway, there was just a few light snow flurries while I was out.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>The winds from the west and southwest were blowing today as I could hear it moving through the trees, but I was not seeing a lot of fresh wind drifting. I did tease out a small shallow wind slab right along the exposed ridge near Gold Hill Pass and I would think there are isolated areas with some sensitive wind drifted snow on the leeward side of the ridge lines. </p> <p>No avalanche activity that I observed into old snow from the recent storm.</p>
Snow conditions are holding up quite well, except for the south facing slopes where a melt freeze crust was a bit stout. Settled powder and a thin crust on east facing terrain was still good riding and turning.