Manto nevoso

Observation: Weber Canyon

jgUintas
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Quick report

Red Flags
Wind Loading, Collapsing, Poor Snowpack Structure
Red Flags Comment
<p>I had a few notable heart stopping collapses. Wind was drifting snow. The buried facets haven't gone away.</p>

Traveled from 7400-10,200, all aspects, slope angles to 32º. Everywhere I dig in the snow the snow profile is different. I was not finding instability in the new snow. The obvious weak layers are the buried faceted snow from the January dry spell and the basal facets from the beginning of the year (CT/ECT's are still able to activate this deep instability). South aspects had a crust sandwich with new storm snow sitting on a stout crust over facets over another crust sitting on more faceted snow. I collapsed the south facing slope a couple of times on ascent. A bit to my surprise, the south was not as bomber as I had thought it would be. Cornices are growing but no results were achieved dropping a few big chunks on east and north facing slopes. Wind was forming some sensitive drifts. Wind from this storm cycle has loaded south and east aspects. The trees are coated with rime and, in a lot of places, an ice lens. The snow pack is adjusting to the weight of the new snow but the potential to set of an avalanche failing on buried facets is considerable. The sun may be a factor over the weekend.

Snowpack

An inch or two of snow overnight. After the rime event there seemed to be a mix of graupel and snow. Still excellent riding conditions where the wind hasn't hammered the snow. Noticing the settlement cones around trees, the storm snow had settled 1-2" and I did not find instability within the new snow. Rime crust was non-existent to very thin where I traveled.