Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Rapid Warming
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>There was a considerably amount of snow being transported by the wind. We avoided the northly aspects that were loading from the strong winds but did find wind slabs up high on east aspects. These wind slabs ranged from 1-3" thick, but were mostly non-reactive. We could get the slabs to break away in chunks, but they were not propagating or picking up additional snow.</p> <p>The wind appeared to be slowing down the snow warming above 9,000'. Below 9,000' the slopes exposed to the sun were getting set on our exit around 1:30 pm.</p>
The first photo shows the wind plumes off the ridgeline between Pfiefferhorn and Chipman Peak. The second photo shows the wind damaged snow off of Hogum Hogback.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>I would expect the wind slabs to be very sensitive tomorrow morning. There was a significant amount of snow being transported.</p> <p>With the approaching storm I would be concerned about how well the new snow will bond to either the sun crusts or to the wind slabs.</p>
The new snow from the storm on Friday had consolidated considerably. Due to all of the wind transport the snow ranged from a couple inches to 18".
We saw a wide variety of snow conditions
Lower elevations in the morning were refrozen sun crusts Higher elevations were a mix of powder in sheltered areas, dense packed powder in somewhat protected areas, and breakable crusts in the open areas.
We saw a lot of very wind damaged snow on east and west aspects.
The west aspects had a lot of roller balls from Friday's warming.