Quick report
- Aspect
- Southwest
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall
- Elevation
- 3048 m
- Slope Angle
- 20°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Wind loading seemed limited to ridgelines, at least in the areas travelled (mostly S and W) so didn't select that as red flag.</p>
The profile is generally representative of the snow structured observed today. There was a bit of grauple right above the crust indicating a good bit of turbulence early in the storm. The crust was generally pretty strong although we did find at least two places where we were able to punch through it on skis. After the new snow, the snow directly below the crust was also fairly weak.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>The new snow generally seemed well behaved and reasonably well attached to the melt freeze crust. Small loose snow avalanches/sluffing was common today but these were manageable. Tomorrow warming will make for wet loose activity.</p>
New snow did a good job of covering old melt-freeze crust and was generally of good quality/not wind effected. As noted in today's forecast, the wind did create some drifts up to 1.5' feet deep along ridgelines. These were pretty soft and didn't produce long running cracks. At 7pm west facing snow just above Alta had a very minor zipper crust.