Quick report
- Collapsing
- isolated
We felt and observed several large wumphs near our pit location
Weather
- Air Temp
- 32
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- moderate
- Rain Elevation
- Not observed
- Recent Snowfall
- 10
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
Overcast skies, light rain on the drive up to Hiland Road, light snow flurries throughout the tour day, no wind in the valley but observed snow transport and flagging along ridges
Snowpack
Snowpack was still shallow coverage with many exposed rocks, shrubs, and alders. We did notice the snow coverage increased significantly the deeper we went into the valley. We observed 2" to 4" of fresh snow on top of bare ground, ice, or hard wind-affected snow surfaces. When we approached our pit location, we both noticed multiple large "wumphs" and felt the snow collapsing underneath us. We dug two snow pits at around 2,500' and observed similar structures of fresh snow on top of an older wind slab on top of a melt-freeze crust facet combo with an advanced basal facet base intermixed with striated depth hoar. We were able to get propagation on the facets beneath the top melt-freeze crust and suspect that this is the layer that collapsed underneath us. There is snow available for transport with another significant wind/loading event and a big weather pattern change in the forecast this weekend. The avalanche hazard is likely to increase over the weekend with the forceful pattern change.
Saw debris piles of large avalanches in the Death Bowl chutes. Observed today, but suspected to have occurred on the major wind event on January 12th and January 13th.