Quick report
I saw several very small wet loose avalanches and roller balls with one much larger wet loose (D1) that likely occurred the previous day. It is hard to say exactly where this avalanche iniatiated from as there are multiple gulleys with different aspects above this slide.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 28
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
In the morning I experienced dense clouds with limited visibility. By 10am the clouds began to lift. Winds were moderate from the west. In the AM the summit temperature was 28F. At 10-mile snopark by 12:30 it was 48F.
Snowpack
In general I found a melt freeze crust layer on sunny slopes and about 4" of unconsolidated powder on northern/shaded slopes near the summit. At 7,730ft on a north aspect I dug in the snow. Down 70cm I found a very thin ice crust layer with a few small rounding facets (0.5mm) just below this crust. While performing a compression test, I did recieve a sudden collapse (CTH-SC) on this layer but no results on an extended column test. My thought is that this layer is very isolated, and the likelihood of a slide on this is low; however, it is always recommened to do some digging if you head to the larger terrian up there.
The main instability I found was wet loose activity. By noon I started to notice the snow surface become saturated on sunny slopes. This avalanche problem is best managed by using timing to your advantage and getting off slopes when the surface starts to warm up.