Quick report
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall, Wind Loading, Cracking, Collapsing, Poor Snowpack Structure
Widespread shooting cracks, whumpfs, and collapsing while breaking trail up to powder park 3. Quite unsupportable base of facets under the new snow. Surprisingly, the snow felt more stable higher up than the first 1000ish feet off the Mill D North summer trail, but by no means stable. Near the ridge top, lots of wind loading created a very cohesive wind slab with the new snow. Cracks would shoot out 10 feet in front of us, and we felt and heard the whole slope settle multiple times on the way up. It skied quite well, without much in the way of early season hazard under the snow, just some bushes sticking up. No notable reactivity on the 2 laps down.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>About 12-18" of new, heavy snow with a fair bit of consolidation into a slab</p> <p>12-18" of new snow sits on top of facets to the ground. Did not dig a bit, but there was a noticeable lack of support under the new storm snow</p>