Wind Slabs
- Alta quota
- Limite del bosco
- Sotto il limite del bosco
- Probabilità
- Likely
- Dimensione
- 2
Ted was on the east side of the range and found avalanche danger changing late in the day. More on his travels and insight found here.
Winds began blowing yesterday, continued through the night, and there's no shortage of loose snow available to blow around and form drifts that'll react to our additional weight. This combo not only changed the landscape, it also ramped up the avy danger. The good news is... this avalanche problem is pretty straight-forward and mostly confined to upper elevation, leeward terrain facing the north half of the compass. However, due to the prolonged strength and duration of wind speed, I suspect drifts formed lower down slope then we might expect and also formed around terrain features like chutes and gullies. So here's what changed on the front line... yesterday's mostly manageable soft drifts are now today's bigger brother version- they're stiff, they'll break deeper and wider than you might expect.... they'll pack a punch.
So, it's time to recalibrate and the key to riding safely today is... be flexible with your travels plans and adjust objectives if you're starting to see or feel obvious clues to unstable snow like shooting cracks, sudden collapses, or the biggest clue to avalanches and of course, that's avalanches, especially if they're occurring on the same type of slope you wanna ride on!
Above is a 24 hour data dump for Windy Peak (10,662') illustrating the punishing winds along the high peaks.