Crystal Mountain Ski Area

Today NWAC teamed up with our friends and colleagues at Crystal Mountain Ski Area to look at the wet snow problems. While the backcountry areas seemed to go through a cycle of natural wet slabs during and just after the last atmospheric river, Crystal has seen a trio of recent triggered and natural slides. These provide a unique insight into water flow in the snowpack and highlight the ongoing wet slab issue. A crown profile on one of these avalanches showed water pooling at a layer of weak facets, very low in the snowpack. While inbound and backcountry snowpacks are often different, water flow and wet slab avalanches are a tricky beast. Up close information like this is invaluable for predicting these cycles in the future. 

No cracking or collapsing.

New Snow: We found about 6 in (15cm) of new snow above 5500ft in wind sheltered areas. This snow had been significantly redistributed last night's strong winds, even well below ridgeline. Overall, the new snow seemed to be bonding well to the old surface. Small test slopes were stubborn, and the new snow didn't want to move very far. With all the wind redistribution, we saw several small pillow-like wind slabs. In general, these areas were small and confined to near exposed ridges. 

Old Wet Snow: The old wet snow surface hadn't really frozen. Skis easily punched through any thin very weak surface crust into wet snow beneath. Boot penetration was much deeper, often exceeding thigh deep. We layers withing the snowpack were also still weak. Based on what we found, it seems like it will take more than temperatures barely dipping below freezing to get the snow to freeze solid.