Quick report
- Cracking
- specific
Observed many natural avalanches on northeast, east, and southeast aspects between 5900 and 7800 feet. Cracking in the snow was limited to snow within that last 24 hours that had begun to form a soft windslab, cracking was isolated to exposed ridges areas just lee of ridges and cross-loaded slopes.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 33-28
- Cloud Cover
- obscured
- Wind Loading
- moderate
- Rain Elevation
- 4800
- Recent Snowfall
- 10
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
Warm and moist day. Winds were light to moderate from the south throughout the day. Snowfall throughout the day ranging from 1cm to .5cm. 33F and snowing at 4600 feet, 29F at 7800'.
Snowpack
Surface snow was 10cm in the last 24 hours. Snow transport was occurring thorough the day developing cornices and soft wind slabs. shooting cracks were observed within this storm snow on ridges and lee to ridges as well as cross-loaded slopes. Test pit showed a right-side-up snowpack down to the Jan 4, Jan 8 layers. At 6100 feet on a SSE aspect with 30 degree slope we did not get a propagating result with an ECT. At 7800 feet on a ESE aspect with 35 degree slope just uphill of a crown, we did not get a propagating result with an ECT.
Avalanche
We observed numerous avalanches that slid within the last 24 to 48 hours. On north east aspects it was hard to keep track of individual avalanches, but there were at least 6 individual slides. Crowns could be found on these aspects from 5900 to 7800 feet continiously as we traveled. These avalanches all had crowns between 2 to 6 feet. The crowns that we dug into on these aspects all propagated on 2-3mm rounding facets and were sliding on a subtle melt freeze crust. One of these avalanches stepped down to the ground. All of these avalanches were D2 or larger. On southeast aspects we saw three avalanches between the elevations of 7100 and 7800 feet. These avalanches had crown heights from 2 to 4 feet and also propagated on 2-3mm rounding facets. Size D2 or larger. The bed surface of these slides was a more well pronounced melt freeze crust than those on the northeast aspect, but at 7800 feet on the southeast this crust was less defined.