Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
Started touring up phantom trees around 3pm, snow at the lot was already heavy with mostly sunny skies. Snow was heavy and wet up phantom, but stable and non reactive. The sun gave way to mostly cloudy weather and open solar slopes were refreezing pretty quick at 4pm which put our wet loose concerns to bed. Any snow that saw the sun was crusting up, but anything slightly shaded (like behind a couple trees) was light and dry. At around 5700ft on the slot approach, we noticed dry snow & wind effect. Kick turns were starting to fail at corners and produced a couple small shooting cracks. I dug a few hasty pits and observed the new storm snow ~6-10" slabs failing upon isolation on the old snow interface. Followed our skinner back down to a bench which was lower angle and a couple more hasty pits showed the same. Ended up bailing, but dug a pit nearby in a safer spot. New storm snow failed at ECT3 but no propagation. Pulling on the column from behind with light amount of force produced full propagation, as did skinning above the pit.
Avalanche
Saw numerous small wet loose originating from cliffs warming during the occasional sun break