Quick report
We observed lots of pinwheels on steep, sunny slopes.
Weather
- Air Temp
- -2
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Recent Snowfall
- 0
Thursday was a bit of a day of transition. The morning was cold and clear, but the sun was heating things up quickly. We toured through mostly dry powder on shady slopes, but trees were shedding and dripping anywhere they were in the sun. It felt quite warm in the sun with no wind.
Snowpack
The snowpack started out nice and dry, but the riding wasn't deep. Slopes near treeline, open bowls, and the margins of the lava flow were all wind effected, although I had trouble discerning a prevailing wind direction based upon variations across the terrain. We found hard, punchy Wind Slab midway down from the summit (7200 ft) on a North slope.
We were seeing lots of pinwheels and rollerballs on slopes that were in the sun.
In the one profile that I dug 7160 ft. North, I didn't find any concerning weak layers. There are a lot of subtle variations in the first meter of snow (from the last 2 weeks) and given recent events in the Cascades as well as large the Wind Slab avalanche observed last weekend at Paulina, I didn't have much of an appetite for steep, unsupported riding.