Quick report
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>No red flags. Very minor slow moving push-alanches on steep sunny aspects. </p>
Some degree of faceting and slick crusts dominate the landscape. Commonly, cloud cover, warmth and wind degrade newly developed facets...but if we see enough snow and wind with tomorrow's storm, I would approach steep wind loaded terrain with caution until it's proven stable...
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Last photo for my old friend Tom Kimbrough who always advised - if caught in an avalanche - to not swim; but rather Fight like hell.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>General "All Risk" mountain hazards for spring:</p> <ul> <li>melting creeks and unstable snow bridges</li> <li>melting lakes</li> <li>slide for life</li> <li>failing cornices</li> <li>glides</li> <li>moats</li> <li>and etc.</li> </ul>
Mixed bag. Sunday night's storm has settled to about 2-3" up high and remains cold (and starting to facet) in only the true north facing terrain above 9700'. Low angle, smooth off aspects provided the best skiing with damp snow above a carveable crust. It appears that all of this recent snow sits on a crust on all aspects and all elevations; bulletproof, then breakable above 10k. I did not observe facets above this crust, and yet it is very slick and will promote longer running avalanches if slides step or gouge there.
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I went to look at the various and variable snow surfaces ahead of tomorrow's storm.
* On some northeast and northwest aspects, I found very small but clear and loose RR facets above the crust.
* On true north facing slopes above 9700', I found Sunday night's decomposing, fragmented snow (1st pic) starting to facet (2nd pic)
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There was no option for "burnt to the ground" above, so I'll add a pic for a thousand mostly unprintable words for many solar aspects.