Wind Slabs
- Alta montaña
- Límite del bosque
- Bajo el límite del bosque
- Probabilidad
- Likely
- Tamaño
- 2
The data in the image above from Windy Peak (10,662'), clearly illustrates nuking winds through most of the morning along with a midday frontal passage, cooler temperatures, and diminishing winds.
Yesterday's very strong southwest winds conspired with fresh snow, whipping up a batch of wind drifts that'll remain sensitive to our additional weight today. While most of our issues are confined to steep, leeward, upper elevation terrain, yesterday's strong winds cross-loaded terrain features like chutes and gullies and slabs formed lower downslope than we usually expect to see. That's all pretty straight-forward... now here comes the tricky stuff because yesterday's drifts are gonna be camouflaged with fresh snow, making them hard to detect. In any case, today you'll want to look for and avoid fat, rounded pillows of snow, especially if they sound or feel hollow like a drum. And you can tweak small test slopes like road cuts to see how they're reacting before committing to big terrain or big objectives.