Quick report
- Aspect
- Northwest
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Cracking, Collapsing, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 3048 m
- Slope Angle
- 25°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Isolated cracking and collapsing. Not very worrisome.</p> <p>The wind over the last few days has been transporting snow onto east through north facing slopes. A lot of west facing slopes are stripped bare of snow from the relentless winds. Cornices were growing in the area traveled and there was some natural cornice fall. Wind slab danger seems straight forward and easy to avoid.</p> <p>The biggest red flag is the poor snowpack structure. A lot of spacial variability. Pit tests have been variable as well. Today's test reflected medium to hard effort to fail but clean and energetic shears.</p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>See "Red Flags" above.</p> <p>This is a tricky issue for me. I'm not trusting steeper slopes on the north half of the compass yet. The snow pack is getting deeper and mid and basal facets seem to be gaining strength but there is a lot a variabilty in my snow pit tests and a lot of variability in general in the snowpack from place to place, even when in close proximity. Today's test were failing about 66 cms down (26") on 1-2mm faceted grains. The shears were clean and energetic and failing with medium to hard effort. Full, energetic propagation on ECT's. </p>