Quick report
- Red Flags
- Cracking, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Things felt relatively stable in tele gold, but I think that is because it has seen plenty of skier compaction over the long dry spell we had as well as some sluffing from the cliffs above. Pole probing on the way into the basin revealed plenty of loose sugary snow below the blanket of new snow. We experienced some localized cracking in the new snow towards the top of tele gold. The cracking only ran 2-3 meters. I think this was mostly due to the fact that the new snow slab was sitting on top of an old very hard wind slab. I would think that if we had been in an area where the new snow was sitting on top of the January facets then we would have experienced a much larger shooting crack as well as collapsing.</p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>If the winds pick up as predicted over the next couple days we should see some wind slabs form on the leeward side of slopes and ridges.</p> <p>The snow pack from earlier in the year is very week and feels like it is faceted all the way through. If we see more snow over the next week I would expect to see a decent avalanche cycle as more weight is added to what is already on the ground. </p>
The new snow the mountains received over the past couple days was a welcome refresh for our meager snow pack. The snow from the most recent storm cycle was not wind effected down in the basin and made for great skiing. On our way out of the basin we experienced plenty of damp snow in areas that face south and west.