Roman Nose

Rainy day in the mountains fueling widespread Loose Wet avalanches. These were visible across aspects and elevations. Avoiding travel on or below steep slopes is the best way to avoid this hazard. As water continues to percolate deeper into the snowpack, the potential for wet snow to fail as more dangerous slabs lingers and it's best to give larger slopes and avalanche paths an extra buffer till cooler weather returns.

We found wet to very wet snow around a foot down from the surface. Water is pooling a little bit deeper in softer storm layers above harder ones. The predominent wetting front was much shallower than we expected give several inches of rainfall over the last four days. The mid-storm rain crust from 3/11 and a crust from 3/9 were dry and becoming brittle. Subtle faceting in these decomposing crusts but also rounding grains present. In our pit location, these crusts were not the stout interfaces at the time of burial and shortly thereafter. Our two primary persistent weak grains that have stuck with us for many weeks now, the 2/14 and 1/28 surface hoar layers, are a meter plus deep, rounding, and dry. In tests, the only notable results were in Compression Tests - sudden collapse at the bottom of the very wet snow and at the interface with moist layers with easy to moderate force. Inserting a shovel behind the CT columns, we observed a resistent planar shear above the 3/9 crust. Propagation Saw Tests at the very wet-moist interface did not provide results. The slab only settled as we moved the saw through the snow below. All in all, the snowpack is sponging rain from around 6,000 feet and higher and overall not as rotten as expected. The snowpack below the very wet snow was supportive to foot travel and machines. We only got stuck in one ditch with running water below. The snowpack is quickly depleting around 4,500 feet and lower.