Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
Medium/high density new snow on very supportable crust. Lots of old slide action on NE aspects, but nothing observed on westerlies. Fun creamy skiing with only marginally tenuous skinning on steeper slopes. Cracking limited to 1-2ft max at switchbacks in skin track. New snow bonding fairly well to melt freeze crust below.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Wind Loading
- light
- Recent Snowfall
- 15
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
We kept chastising the sun anytime it made an appearance in hopes of getting one more day/morning of decent snow tomorrow. Seemed to work for most the day. Bet most west faces got cooked with the late afternoon/evening rays. Decent breeze kept the snow surface cool at upper elevations. Snow surface warming apparent on the road back down below ~5.3k.
Snowpack
15cm of new snow and graupel on top of crust supportable of ski boots and snowmobiles on edge. New snow/graupel bonding fair/well to surface crust, but pretty easy to sheer. Dug a quick pit on NE slope at ~6700', HS 300cm, upper meter of snowpack primarily a mix of crusts and loose grains transitioning to consolidated snow. Couldn't make a snowball with really any of the snow in this section. Below this the snowpack was soaked,, including the Feb SH and JDL. JDL a full 2m down in this spot. Still able to see a few SH crystals in the JDL, but water and refreezing has definitely made in impact on this layer. No instability tests performed.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1.5
- Type
- L
- Count
- 3
- Aspect
- NE
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 7275 ft
new dry loose overrunning one of the older debris piles