Natural avalanche activity is tapering, but still happening. Avoid wind loaded terrain in the alpine!
Sustained winds have begun to expose gravel in the alpine. Treeline winds are still variable which means slabs could be anywhere.
Our snowpack has gained enough depth/strength to not sink to the ground every step. Unfortunately the deeper layers haven't changed. The entire lower half is either facets, or depth hoar.
Natural activity continued today. Active avalanches were reported near Tent ridge. Sz 2-2.5 and running full path.
Today we went to dig a profile at one of our standard locations, the Dog Leg area. We found 152 cm of snow in a moderately wind loaded treeline area. The 20-30cm of new snow is sitting on a 2cm thick, dense (pencil) wind crust layer. We wondered if this is what the recent cycle was sliding on, but that's just speculation. We had a failure on that layer in tests. Below the wind crust, we encountered the dreaded facets at about 50cm down. The Nov interface is down 110cm. Here, the snowpack is mostly depth hoar and large facets. On a more general note the winds were transporting tons of snow today. Any exposed area from E to S is heavily loaded. Cornices are also growing with the wind.
Wind. Sailors might like a forecast like ours, but for us skiers/climbers/winter enthusiasts, the wind gets old in a hurry! Winds will increase yet again tonight with high alpine wind hitting the 70km/hr range, but fading to a mere 50km/hr by noon. In lower terrain, expect more like 30-40km/hr and gusty. Skies will be mixed, with maybe a few flurries. Does snow whipped up by the wind count as a flurry? Temperatures? These will be between -12 and -8.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
