Quick report
- Red Flags
- Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Not many red flag issues in my travels today around Gold Hill. Winds even along the ridge tops were generally light and the wind drifts I stomped around on appear to have settled-out. There was some minor cracking within the new snow in the wind exposed areas around skis and sled, about 12-16" deep and were quite manageable. </p>
The snow pack appears to have adjusted to the storm rather well, with only minor sluffing of the new snow. Some wind loading likely has over loaded some slopes which may be sensitive to the additional weight of a rider. Felt like the hazard was in the moderate range with some isolated areas where a considerable hazard exsists.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>If winds overnight pick-up, the new light density will easily form new and sensitive wind drifts along the ridgelines. </p> <p>I did not observe any recent avalanche activity that involved the old faceted snow now buried under the recent storm snow. I would still think in isolated areas mainly those east facing slopes still have the possibility of triggering an avalanche which breaks into old weak snow. </p>
A nice storm for the area with about 10-12" of fairly light density snow which really helped fill things in and cover up the old hard tracks. The riding and turning conditions have really improved with some denser snow that fell early in the storm and nice lighter density snow on top making for quite good conditions this afternoon.