Quick report
- Cracking
- specific
- Collapsing
- specific
Numerous large collapses and poor stability test results on Emmons, but our attempts to trigger a few suspect slopes by stomping above steep start zones were unproductive. I went to East River and the terrain there was more conducive for safer ski cuts. All three of the steep slopes I ski cut produced avalanches. I wasn't able to remote those slopes, but as soon as I got on steeper parts of the slope, they went.
Numerous collapses; a few localized and most feature-scale up to 50+ feet. These were all on the 2/2 surface hoar layer. Triggered 3 persistent slabs on the same layer.Weather
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- none
- Rain Elevation
- Just below valley floor
- Recent Snowfall
- 2
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Warm and cloudy, with temperature above freezing and moist snow falling at light to moderate rates.
Snowpack
Stability tests on an east aspect at 10,200 near Happy Chutes produced easy propagating results about 20" deep under a 4F slab (ECTP1 and ECTP4). The surface hoar layer here is about 1 cm thick. The crowns of the triggered avalanches on East River failed on a mix of 6 to 8 mm surface hoar nested in 2mm near surface facets (2/2 layer), fist hard.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1 R1
- Type
- SS
- Count
- 5
- Aspect
- E
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 9500 ft
I ski cut three persistent slabs on northeast aspects above East River. Slabs are about 20" thick, two of the avalanches ran 500' to the valley floor and were large (D2). The East River area had numerous natural D1 to D2 persistent slabs, likely from last week's storm. Two of them stepped down to the ground below hard slabs, about 3 feet thick.