Manto nevoso

Observation: Mill B South

Grainger, FeinbergSalt Lake
Vedi sulla mappa

Quick report

Most activity since Sunday has been shallow (~2-6"), loose and falls into 3 categories of sluff:

1) Sunday dry-loose- During the early afternoon Sunday, during the highest PI, there was widespread dry-loose activity on slopes ~37 degrees and steeper. Running on last week's thermal crust, these point releases picked up hazardous volume only in concave terrain features that promoted it.

2) Monday warming dry-loose (Photo #1)- Monday's sun warmed East then South then West faces quickly and steep/rocky areas were prone to point releases from rocks heating or tree bombs.

3) Human-triggered sluffs (Photo #2)- In dry snow these were isolated to ski-width on terrain steeper than mid-30s or convexities. Some of these pieces were entraining a bit more snow in warm solar areas by Monday afternoon. Overall very manageable.

The surface snow in most places is still soft medium-density above ~8500' and progressively denser the lower you go under that. Light winds (occasional mod. gusts) could lead to isolated soft wind slabs in load-likely areas but no observed concerns by mid-day along ridgelines.

The Instability/Hazard scale will not tip toward hazardous unless skiers end up in complex terrain features with voluminous sluffing above them. Heating this week may continue the wet-loose activity.

Snowpack

Sunday's snow in the area has settled to 3-5" in most places with last week's thermal crust present underneath on E-S-W faces.  In exposed places along alpine ridgelines and where terrain features have been scoured, the Feb. 7th crust is still prominent.