Quick report
- Aspect
- Northwest
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Cracking, Collapsing, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 2896 m
The Christmas Eve Rain crust was the problematic layer in my snow pit; both above and below it. Although I had ECTX in my pit, I was able to pry out pieces from above and below the CERC (Photo 2). I think a Column Test might sus this out a little more, but its another debacle to figure out where to test this spatially variable crust. In my standard ECT pit, my CERC went from 5cm to 10cm in thickness across the pit at 83-73cm deep. I had the cleanest shears (Q2) above the CERC (Photo 2), but the depth hoar interface below the CERC was shearing with some Q3 gusto. Full propagation was not seen in my pit, but spacial variability seems incredibly unpredictable right now. In (Photo 3) you can see the coverage is still fairly abysmal at the bottom of Thousand Turns Gully.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>The Christmas Eve Rain Crust is thick, but how much can it hold and do you know where its thin? Felt an obvious but localized collapse at 9500ft while crossing the talus at the bottom of Thousand Turns Gully. I also had sensitive localized cracking in protected terrain around trees and rocks on low density snow. </p> <p>Wind drifted snow on both polars and solars, will create more tension on PWLs (facets, slick crusts, graupel). In (Photo 1), you can see a wind drifted slab failing on top of the CERC; failing 50ft. wide X 18in. deep X 100ft vertical. This avalanche was observed on the cliffs lookers left of Heavens Gate entrance.</p>