Quick report
Rare conditions.
- Dry, low-density snow from valley floor.
- 50+ cm of new and recent snow, mostly low density. Not our usual small needles. Cohesionless, until early afternoon, when it felt like just enough settlement for the top 15+" of snow to get ever-so slabby. Only a few short cracks and only when snow undercut by ski track. However, I've seen low-density snow like this slab up rapidly as it settles.
- We skinned and skied slopes up to about 33 degrees, with a few short pitches at about 35 degrees with no cracking, collapses, or sluffs.
- The new snow is more or less untouched by sun or wind. Both could rapidly create slabs.
- Much of the old growth alder was bent over by the November AR and is now buried. Looks like mid winter at mid elevations.
Media tomorrow.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 15
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Wind Loading
- none
- Recent Snowfall
- 60
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
Winds calm to light. A few gusts strong enough to blow some snow off a tree or two. 15-20 cm new snow overnight. S-1 snow shoeres with 5+ cm accumulating during the day.
Snowpack
- @6400' SE, HS 200 cm . Progressively harder with depth (F to 1F. Some thin interfaces, w very small rounding facets. One obvious graupel layer 60 cm below surface. No planar results in small column tests, no propagation in ECT.
- @6700' NE, HS 240 cm. Same, though generally softer. Again, no planar or propagating results.
Avalanche
- Size
- D2 R2
- Type
- SS
- Aspect
- NW
- Trigger
- NL
- Elevation
- 6250 ft
One crown visible on an apron below the steep chutes off Essex Mountain. Probably triggered by loose dry sluff. Poor views of surrounding terain, though some of the gullies/ avalanches paths in Dickey Creek were clean and white to the bottom. Debris from small but long-running sluffs on surface, w a few inches of snow on top.