Observation: Red Baldy

Yeah Travel was up White Pine to Red Baldy thinking that it might be the only place left with dry snow and also because it’s NW aspect is the last to receive direct sun, but that ended up being a mute point seeing as how the sun never really came out. We noticed right off the bat that the wind speeds had increased since yesterday and they continued to grow stronger as the day progressed. By the time we got to Red Baldy the wind was blowing in the strong category cross loading the many terrain features in the top steeper portion of the slope, we got about 2/3 of the way up and decided to pull the plug due to high winds, cross-loading, a thickening slab and warm temperatures. It’s not super hard to bail when you know the ski conditions are rapidly deteriorating. The wind was transporting quite a bit of snow and filling in the skin track as fast as you could break it, and it basically erased our tracks within a few minutes. Also of note was heavy wind loading on the Birthday Chutes ridge line transporting snow far down onto the slope. I’m not sure if all the wind-loading was enough to set up avalanche conditions, but I do know that rapid change (ie:wind-loading) usually increases the hazard.

photos: wet slide on W facing which seemed to be the most active aspect yesterday, wind filling in the skin track as fast as you could break it, and Red Top, Tri-Chutes completely wind hammered.

Melt freeze crust on all aspect at lower and mid elevation, turning to damp as the day heated up. Dense loose, wind slab and wind crust in wind exposed terrain.