Quick report
- Aspect
- West
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Cracking, Collapsing, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 2316 m
- Slope Angle
- 25°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Yesterday after the Christmas Eve storm, I observed several remotely triggered avalanches. Couldn't see evidence of recent activity from our walk up White Pine, however.</p> <p>Cracking and collapsing were noteworthy wherever we strayed from the packed path. Traipsing on a low elevation West aspect I wished I'd been recording a video: I took a step, and the collapse shook snow out of the boughs of two saplings 20 feet away. Cool.</p>
'Tis the season for extended column tests. About 90 seconds of digging gave me a full depth (HS 38cm!) pit, and I only wasted 9 wrist taps (on a second test, 3) to get full propagation and a collapse in the 2mm facets on the ground. The facets here were smaller and damper than at higher elevations and on more northerly aspects.
Test-slope avalanche demonstrates what the collapsing and propagation were all about. 8,100' WNW.
Photo of a crack opening on a 9,300' NNE test slope. Don't believe it? Watch the drawn-out video of the cracking in action.
Snowpack
Snowpack in White Pine is still silly-shallow. Soft powder snow in general but damp or slight zipper crust on patches of S & SW, and surface hoar in some flat, sheltered areas.