Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Cracking
We didn't end up traveling very far or high as we turned around due to weather and conditions, but despite only reaching max elevation of around 8200ft, the snow was very wind effected. After turning around to ski back down, I observed a crack that broke off into smaller slabs. The crack didn't propagate much where I was and the snow didn't slide due to location, but had this been in steeper and less isolated terrain, it would likely have been a real problem. For scale, this crack was ~5ft wide and moved ~3ft below where my ski went, wind slab maybe 3" thick. Good indication of the wind slab problem across elevations and degrees of tree shelter.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>It was extremely windy this morning with quite a bit of cross-loading snow transport. Skinning up the 600ft we went, the skin track above the gully where it was convex was very wind scoured. There were obvious signs of wind loading in isolated pockets (we weren't anywhere near the ridgeline to see it more pervasive) and a wind crust at the snow surface. </p>