Paintbrush Canyon

Today was a spring transitional day for the snowpack. Cold snow could still be found on high, north facing slopes. East, south, and west facing slopes took on heat yesterday and generally had a breakable crust, and they softened during the day. Middle and low elevation northerly slopes also took on heat today and will have a crust tomorrow. There were natural roller balls occurring today on northerly aspects, indicating the warming these slopes were experiencing.

We saw natural wet loose avalanches that were initiated around rocks and steep cliffs. They were generally D1. There is still a lot of snow for southerly slopes to shed, but they will need more warming to release.

We found some lingering wind slabs in high northerly terrain. There is a density change 30 to 40 cm down that was planar. These existed in specific areas that face south, east, and northeast at upper elevations. While wind slabs will stabilize in coming days, it was not something we wanted to mess with today.

There were signs of slabs that failed during the storm, likely on a density change that we observed in some north facing terrain. There were also natural D1 wet loose avalanches coming off of very steep southfacing slopes of Mount Woodring.