Quick report
- Aspect
- West
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Collapsing, Rapid Warming, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 2682 m
- Slope Angle
- 22°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Wind loading on the ridgelines alone with some roller balls late in the day.</p> <p>What really caught us by surprise was the thundering and reverberating collapsing we experienced on low-angle west aspects. Talking to another party, they had the same collapses on south aspects. We climbed the same skin track three times and had collapsing each time. </p> <p>Our snow pit revealed a 15cm layer of facets beneath a very thin sun crust which formed prior to the last storm.</p>
Snowpack
We had a gammut of snow conditions. First thing in the morning we were surprised by how dense the snow was. This made trail-breaking arduous. As the day progressed, green housing led to very damp snow in lower elevations. By the end of the day, this snow was already frozen with a zipper crust. On the ridge lines, we had a combination of supportable and breakable wind crusts.