Quick report
Partly to mostly sunny skies with light to moderate westerly winds made for an excellent day with exceptional views. Snowpack is very thin on southerly slopes below 4000'. Unable to ski down the lower reaches of the Howe Ridge trail. The debris from the previously reported (on Jan. 30th) very large avalanche in the west bowl terminated at about 4200' and crossed the hiking trail. Snowpack deepens quickly above 5000'. Found variable conditions with a thin, breakable surface crust on sunny aspects, but could still find nice turns in soft powder in sheltered terrain below 6500' on more shady slopes. The snowpack on the ridge above about 6500' is capped by a rime crust with a fresh crop of surface hoar growing on top. No obvious signs of instability, no shooting cracks, audible collapses, or any slab releases on test slopes. Noted one large D3 hard slab in the bowl to the north of Stanton Mtn. More details in the avy tab. A quick hand pit near the summit at 7730' on a southerly aspect had the Feb. 3rd crust (~15 cm thick) about 30 cm down with a layer of facets above. This was in a more wind scoured location.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Recent Snowfall
- 0
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Avalanche
- Size
- D3 R4
- Type
- HS
- Aspect
- E
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 7100 ft
No recent avalanche activity.