Quick report
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>I did not experience any collapsing; cracking was only very localized to within a few feet of skis. Still, avalanche 'red flags' trump all. </p>
Target today was to learn the failure plane of the LSB skier triggered avalanche from Tuesday. It was reported as 2' deep and 400' wide. As we gained the Eyebrow, we saw that a new skier triggered avalanche had occurred adjacent to the original. (Fast forward to when digging a snow profile above and adjacent to the two slides, a snowboarder rode past me and triggered a third (albeit smaller) slide.) See photo below. The slides are - chronologically - looker's left to right.
Multiple ECTs revealed ECTX or ECTN(upper 20s) down 30cm on lightly rimed stellars and on small rounding facets (probably from last Thursday's trace - 1" of snow) and perhaps a surface hoar feather or two down 60cm. It was on this thin, loose, small layer of rounding facets 60cm down that *probably* was the failure plane in the much steeper terrain where the avalanches were triggered. Still - many many steep lines were skiied today in adjacent terrain with no issue. But regardless of the test results and not impressive failure plane, avalanches are avalanches remains bulls-eye or class 1 data.
It remained cool enough with just enough cloud cover to keep most - but not all - wet avalanches at bay. Note the wet slides that overran the Cardiac Ridge skin track by early afternoon.
Snowpack
Excellent skiing high north; solars took some heat and will be crusted in the morning. Some mild weakening of the snow surface noted on solar aspects (RR).