Quick report
We rode Seattle Ridge to survey conditions following yesterday's storm. We were encouraged by what we saw. We found about 10 to 16" new snow from Friday's storm. While there had clearly been strong winds during the storm, surfaces were soft. The new snow improved riding conditons, although you can most defiinitely still feel the bottom. Ski condtions were great.
While there were a few smaller storm slab avalanches, we did not see any signs of a widespread avalanche cycle, and we did not see anything failing deeper than the fresh storm snow. It ws easy to trigger dry loose avalanches in steep terrain. We dug many hand pits as we traveled, and were not getting clean shears at the old/new snow interface. We don't fully trust those old surfaces, but we didn't see any glaring red flags today. The old snow is rock hard, and it seems very unlikely that a person would be able to trigger an avalanche on deeper weak layers.
We saw a few small new snow avalanches.Weather
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Rain Elevation
- Sea Level!
- Recent Snowfall
- 10-16"
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
There were some windows of sun, but mostly cloudy for the most part. Strong westerly winds along the Turnagain Arm, light out of the northwest on top of the ridge.
Snowpack
10-16" new, low-density snow on top of a very firm layer. We didn't dig any full pits, but we did dig a lot of quick hand pits and were not getting any clean shears at the old/new interface. The biggest thing we noticed was dry loose avalanches ready to run in steeper terrain.