Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>The big red flag today was wind. However, I think the more important concern will be the wind effects in combination with any new snow. The touchy wind skin noted above will be sitting beneath tonight's new snow, which I think could lead to pretty reactive storm slabs. Consequently, I'm interested to see how the PWL handles the anticipated load in the next 36 hours or so, but I would also definitely have storm/wind slabs top of mind.</p> <p>On the plus side, the wind is mostly in the "normal" direction on Cutler (south to north, or looker's left to right while heading uphill). But, the wind was reaching down to the trailhead, so I expect the Birthday Bowls and similar low elevation terrain to feature wind effects.</p> <p>One more bit of good news for stability was better looking conditons at the bottom of the snowpack in protected/treed northerly terrain below 7800ft for so. I found 50-60cm of snow with only a couple cm of basal facets; they were small (<=1mm) and not super angular, which points in the right direction once things really fill in well enough to ride that terrain.</p>
Snowpack
Surface conditions were similar to yesterday with a couple notable exceptions:
1. We picked up every bit of an inch of fresh mid-density snow!
2. Above 7500ft or so, the new snow was often blown away completely, revealing the underlying rock hard wind slab. However, where the snow remained, it had been blown into a 2" wind skin that was quite touchy and very poorly bonded to the hard layer beneath.