Castle Peak

A sunny, clear day after a storm provided a great day to look for avalanches that happened during the storm. We headed up Castle Peak to see what happened in the steep terrain on the N-NE side of Castle and Basin Peak. On the way up, we stopped to poke into the snowpack and could still feel heavier storm snow layers resting on top of lighter storm snow layers. We also saw plenty of evidence of wind transport during the storm, like cornices above slopes and slabs of wind-drifted snow resting on leeward aspects. Tests on these wind slabs still produce unstable results today (ECTP 18 and ECTP 22). We also triggered a small, shallow wind slab failure on a test slope near the end of our tour. 

We chose a route down a low-angle ridge into the north side of Castle and Basin. We saw snow blowing into the north bowls, and several wind slab avalanches from this ridge. These avalanches had snow on top of them, so they must have failed naturally on 12/14 during the storm. 

We saw several avalanches and numerous collapsed cornices that likely occurred during the storm yesterday. We also triggered one small wind slab failure on a test slope.