Quick report
We found no signs of instability and only a handful of older avalanches. Slopes facing the sun had stout surface crusts. Sheltered slopes facing away from the sun were soft (faceting).
No obvious signs of instability.Weather
- Air Temp
- Inverted
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Recent Snowfall
- 0
- Snow Avail For Transport
- none
The truck recorded single digits in Warm Springs Ck Drainage in the morning. It felt like it was still in the low 20s when we returned. I'd estimate that middle-elevation temperatures near Dollarhide were in the mid 20s F.
Snowpack
Snow-covered sunnier slopes at all elevations had a pretty stout melt-freeze crust at the surface.
Lower Elevations (<6,500): Sunnier slopes were bare, shaded slopes held ~40 cm of snow. The shallow snowpack on shaded slopes was ugly. Surface hoar above near-surface facets above a stout melt-freeze crust. Below the crust, was more of the same. Facets broken up by stout crusts.
Middle Elevations (6,500-8,500'): Snow depths on shaded slopes increased from 40 to ~110 cm. We found some small surface hoar on shaded slopes, but not nearly as much as in lower elevations. The top 15 cm of the snow surface was faceting but much less aggressively than at lower elevations. The 1/1 interface appeared well-bonded.
Upper Elevations (>8,500'): The deepest snow we probed was ~140 cm at 8,800'. Most slopes were wind-affected/pressed, but the slabs and drifts we encountered were not reactive and were softening and beginning to facet. We did not observe surface hoar here, and near-surface faceting was further muted.
Avalanche
We saw two small, older wet loose avalanches that likely released around the 15th. One was on Smoky Dome in the Soldiers, and the other near Rough Canyon above Warm Springs Ck. We also saw one older wind slab on Gunsight Pk in the western Smokys.