Persistent Slabs
- Alta quota
- Limite del bosco
- Sotto il limite del bosco
- Probabilità
- Likely
- Dimensione
- 1
Avalanche season is on our doorstep. The shady upper elevation slopes harbor around a foot of old snow that has weakened into a mix of sugary facets and thin crusts. As the first few inches of snow add up today, new snow sluffs will be easy to trigger, running on the crusts or the weak facets. These loose snow sluffs will run further than expected in steep terrain.
If you're in terrain that gets more than about 6 inches of snow on top of the old, weak snow, expect to trigger very sensitive shallow slabs of snow, especially in any wind drifted areas. These slides will be breaking on the persistent weak layer of faceted snow, and can be triggered from a distance. While shallow, again, they could run much further than expected.
Doug Wewer - Snowpit photo from 8700', N/NE aspect on Ogden Mountain.
Here is a great video about the current snowpack.
Doug Wewer, on Mount Ogden - Check out the full Observeration HERE.
Here is a great photo by Greg Gagne what the old snow pack looked like on an upper elevation, shady slope yesterday within the Cottonwoods - a similar structure exists in the Ogden area mountains.