Quick report
- Red Flags
- Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>We took a couple runs in White Pine up to about 10,000'. Seems like people are inexorably creeping into the steeper north facing terrain, as you would expect with a Moderate danger rating. No one triggered any avalanches as far as we could see. We watched one solo skier take a couple runs off the northwest face of Red Baldy getting up into some high elevation, steep terrain without triggering anything. A few other parties skied some steeper north through northeast facing slopes off Lake Peak. Many tracks on all aspects of the Spire, tracks in the lower angled aprons of both Birthday Chutes - Columbine and also on the aprons of Tri Chutes. I did see one deep-slab avalanche that probably occurred during the heavy part of the storm on January 6-7 timeframe. It was about 10,500' on the direct north side of Red Baldy, west of East Pass. Estimated about 4 feet deep and 200' wide.</p>
I did not have or take the time to dig any snow profiles but I shoved the handle end of my ski pole into the snow dozens of times and I needed to shove it the full length of the pole to punch through into the basal depth hoar layer. In other words, total snowpack depth is over 150 cm in most places and the depth hoar is buried under a meter-thick, very stout slab. So, it's probably difficult to trigger, but if you do, it's a very large avalanche.
Photo #1 is the northwest face of Red Baldy and you probably can't make out the track of a solo skier breaking a trail into the steep, upper elevation terrain and taking a couple runs down, all without triggering anything. Photo #2 is Tri Chutes and there's quite a few tracks in the apron of the runouts, which is all under 30 degrees in steepness. A couple other parties put tracks into 35 degree, north facing terrain off of Lake Peak. (no photo).
Snowpack
Turning conditions remain quite nice with about 3 inches of powder--rapidly recrystallizing--on top of a supportable base. Sun exposed slopes are starting to get some sun crusts but all the other slopes remain dry and quite cold with these clear skies. Gentle slopes are best with very fast snow conditions.