Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
Wind had loaded some middle-elevation slopes (mostly around and above 9000') and many upper elevation slopes. No obvious signs of instability while we were out, but we did not consider traveling in avalanche terrain today. There's a decent slab forming above the uppermost crust due to Thursday night's intense precip / winds / warm temperatures. We didn't go stomping around very much. Cracking was isolated to 1m in length in wind-affected areas when cutting above skin track or ski tracks. We had some fleeting moments of visibility into some alpine terrain in the Spring Ck drainage, and we didn't see any significant, fresh avalanches.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 20s
- Cloud Cover
- obscured
- Wind Loading
- light
- Rain Elevation
- Below 7200'
- Recent Snowfall
- 20-40
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
Winds were light to moderate and a bit swirly. They were moving snow and occasionally loading slopes at the upper end of middle elevations. There was a lot of previous wind transport and loading from Thursday night. It snowed S-1 and S1 while we were out, but little accumulation (1cm?).
Snowpack
Recreational ski day, so few formal snowpack observations. From 11-2PM: HST=25-40cm, depending on wind-exposure/elevation/aspect Storm snow (above first crust in the snowpack): bottom third was lower density, then a slug of dense snow from Thursday night with a thin subtle dust layer, then about 10-20cm of lower density PP. Dirty shears in non-standard hand tests at the crust/newer snow interface, but there's a clean shear in many places on a thin layer about 3-8cm above the crust. Wind: Above 8000', wind had stiffened the snow surface/drifted snow, but few wind slabs until you approached 9000'. Lots of previous wind-loading (and scouring) above 9000'.