Quick report
- Red Flags
- Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Bottomless facets. In particular, along ridgelines where the snow is naturally thinner it is now so thin, that any new load will be easy to avalanche. See photo below. </p>
This is probably 20 vertical feet down from the Sheep Shit ridgeline in a relatively sheltered area. Total snow depth is only 12-16" deep. About half of that is facets.
1.5 - 3 mm facets
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>No surprises here. As noted above, the facets were evident just traveling around. I dug a quick pit at about 9000 feet and found about 35-40cms of facets making up about half of the 80 cm snow depth. </p> <p> </p> <p>Snow is still really thin so stumps and rocks are still a concern.</p>
Snow was generally poor. Travel was from between 8700 feet and 10000 feet. Aspects other than north had a thin temperature crust from earlier in the week. The strength of this varied. In some places it was supportable but not so much elsewhere.
North aspects were half faceted and gave skiing sort of that 'trap door' feel where your skis would cut through the new snow, then sink into the facets. This was also noticeable when skinning through thin areas. You would just sink into the facets. Twice I even tipped over as I sank into the bottomless facet pit. Boot penetration was basically to the ground.