Huntington Ravine (South Gully & adjacent)
Quick report
- Cracking
- specific
Conditions are changing rapidly with warming. What we observed this morning is likely not consistent with terrain conditions as of 1:00pm EST. We decided to travel to Huntington ravine to pick a NE or N aspect to ski (Escape hatch or South Gully). While travelling across the ravine floor we consistently found two problems. The first one was the forecasted wind slabs in wind sheltered areas and the second one was dry loose from the 12cms we got overnight. Both of these problems were in isolated patches on the ravine floor and bot connected to terrain above. We felt comfortable travelling across and getting a feel for the snow. Escape Hatch is still thin. As we made our way up South gully we found mostly dry loose snow atop a firm layer that was not reactive. However, as we reached ~1400m there was an obvious consolidated wind slab. We decided to ski down at that point. We suspect the dry loose would slide easily in the coming days as things warm up and snow density increases. We observed medium spread cracking on wind protected (loaded) and dry loose on top of a compact layer on N aspects while crossing the ravine floor travelling to South Gully.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- moderate
warming up!