Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
A foot of new snow, and swirling winds were found going up to the crags -- gusts were strong at upper elevations. Sun was intermittent, but slopes with a northerly component stayed cold. Dug a pit at the bottom of the couloir, with nothing of note. Were cognizant of the wind slab problem headed up the couloir, and dug several hasty pits. Sluff was a concern, but seemed manageable. Near the top new snow was deeper, about 18", with isolated pockets of slightly denser wind effected snow. After skiing the bed surface it was clear that the new snow/old snow interface was not well bonded.
Avalanche
Triggered a D1.5 with a crown 1.5ft deep, 75 ft wide, on a west facing couloir around 8000ft up the Bass Creek crags. No one was caught, ran 3/4 of couloir. New snow was about a foot deep but unconsolidated, initiated on a slightly denser wind pocket. The bed surface was quite hard and slick. We had planned to ski cut the top, but before that used skis to push some snow down the couloir to see what the sluff would entrain. Instead of sluff, we got a soft slab to propagate.