Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
- Collapsing
- isolated
Crusts in the upper snowpack proved to be worth keeping an eye on if traveling on big southerly-facing slopes in the alpine. Small facets below a crust showed the potential to trigger a deeper slab avalanche if you found an area with enough slab or load on that crust.
Below ~11,800ft, the southerly-facing slopes we traveled on were holding good riding with lower avalanche risk.
Mostly quiet on this tour. A couple of collapses on southerly-facing slopes between 10,900ft and 11,600 ft. One booming collapse on a low-angle west-facing slope at 11,600ft.Weather
- Cloud Cover
- scattered
- Wind Loading
- light
- Recent Snowfall
- 20 to 25
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
Clear sky to start the day, then partly cloudy in our area. Other parts of the Ruby Range were obscured in clouds. Constent light winds down in the valley, with stronger winds on the summit ridgelines of Baldy.
Snowpack
We got eyes on the 1/1 interface on southerly facing slopes. Above 10,900ft this thin crust was resting above a thin layer of 1mm facets that were around F+ hard. This crust produced a couple of collapses when traveling through the terrain. Where we traveled, slab formation was typically the missing ingredient. Soft crusts and facets were common.
A 26-degree west-facing slope at 11,500ft had a horrible snowpack structure. A 60cm (2FT) slab was resting on a weak crust (Christmas Crust) over large-grained depth hoar. This slope produced a booming collapse and shooting cracks. This snowpack structure was variable in the area due to the December weather events.
No obvious signs of instability were observed below 10,800ft on southerly and west-facing terrain.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1
- Aspect
- S
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 12300 ft
A couple of small wind slabs that ran today. Many small storm slabs that ran yesterday.