Quick report
By the time we descended after a long summit break the snow was warm and soft and made for surprisingly good skiing. Not quite hot pow, but something like that. Not too sticky except for in the denser trees near the bottom. Below 9500ft on the way down the snow was very wet and unconsolidated. We did not experience any cracking or collapsing.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Few clouds, 40F at 0820 at 10k ft, calm winds becoming light to moderate at 9am as cloud cover increased to broken. 37F at 12k feet at 1100. 53F at the car at 8300ft at 1250.
Snowpack
We dug a quick test pit at 11k ft in a talus field, and found a roughly 25cm thick layer of facets at the bottom of the snowpack. ECTX, CT16 Q3 just above a rock. Snow surfaces ranged from firm wind board to something between orange peel snow and sastrugi. There was a wind crust in open areas ranging in depth from 2cm to 15cm.
Avalanche
Old crowns visible in the distance across the skyline. Observed an avalanche somewhere around 10.2k ft on an E facing slope. Didn't get close enough to assess it well, but it looks like a slab avalanche that maybe failed more recently than the Feb 13-14 storm. See attached photo.