Quick report
Today the goal was to look north facing terrain at the mid/upper elevation transition with the focus on buried persistent weak layers. I found a poor snowpack structure with a 1-2 foot slab atop the known buried layers of surface hoar and crust/facet combinations. The surface hoar here is much smaller (1cm tall vs the 2-3cm) than the surface hoar found higher in the Saddle Mountain cirque. With that, it is less reactive in snowpit tests but still shows full propagation (ECTs of 11 and 13 on the January 23 surface hoar).
No collapsing and tracks on steeper slopes show this problem is becoming less sensitive to the weight of a skier. Poor snowpack structure and potential for large D2-D2.5 avalanches exists on slopes that did not avalanche naturally last week.
Mid elevation terrain was sheltered from the wind today with no wind slab observed.
No signs of instability but easy to push fast running dry loose.Weather
- Air Temp
- High 20s
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Wind Loading
- light
- Rain Elevation
- Hard to tell exact rain lines during the storm but lowest extent of snow was 5500' with rain likely above that before the rain line dropped.
- Recent Snowfall
- 4-6 inches of dense snow
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
It would take significant wind to transport the new snow due to high snow density.
Avalanche
No avalanches observed aside from D1 dry loose intentional ski cuts.