Avalanche
- Slab Width
- 12 m
- Weak Layer
- New Snow/Old Snow Interface
- Trigger Type
- Skier
- Vertical Fall
- 61 m
- Avalanche Type
- Wet Loose
- Slab Thickness
- 18 cm
- Trigger Detail
- Unintentionally Triggered
- Start Zone Aspect
- South
- Avalanche Problem
- Wet Snow
- Start Zone Elevation
- 2987 m
It appears that Mother Nature heard our objections to Sunday's unscrupulous wind and did something to attempt to make things right. Tuesday morning we woke to a new 7"-10" of 10% density snow that fell without much wind. This snow bonded fairly well to the old, rough, wind-beaten surface and skiing and riding conditions improved immensly. Thank You.
Moderate NE winds lighlty scoured north through east-facing slopes along the highest ridges but the damage was minimal as seen in Pic 1 at 10,500'. Some minor cracking was observed on southwest-facing slopes but the new soft slabs were unreactive.
Scattered clouds through mid-morning allowed the strong March sun to warm south-facing slopes quickly. By 10am the surface became damp and by 11am, small wet-loose slides were easily triggered on steep southerlies. This small D1 was triggered unintentionally, gathering up a sizable debris pile. The slick wind-beaten old surface aided with WL initiation. West and south aspects will have a crust Wednesday morning. East and north were spared so far, except for elevations below 9000' where ambient air temps were above freezing.
As for stability on the mid and upper elevation northwest through north to east aspects where we continue to track the season-long weak layers near the ground, for now the depth hoar is old, tired and dormant. It seems unlikely that a rider could trigger one of these deep slabs but the poor structure is still something that warrants continued evaluation. Especially when we continue to record stability test results like today's ECTP 23 and PST END 40/100 on a northeast-facing slope at 10,500'.