Snowpack
This was an afternoon jaunt to look at the avalanche that failed in the NW bowl of Galena Peak. Faceting happening in the upper snowpack, alpine surfaces were noticeably slippery due to faceting. Found some isolated pockets of SH as high as 10,500'.
Avalanche
- Size
- D3.5 R3
- Count
- 3
- Aspect
- NW
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 10700 ft
This is the main portion of the large natural avalanche that failed between Friday night and Saturday morning in the NW bowl of Galena Peak. The crown spanned over 1,500' of terrain. Measured across all three slides, the crowns spanned over 3,000' of terrain. Crowns wrap from W-NW-N. In many places, this stepped down or gouged down to the 11/30 weak layer/ground. In other places the avalanche failed and stayed on top of the 1/6 interface. There are car-sized blocks of hard slab in the debris from one heavily wind loaded, deep pocket in the middle of the NW face. The bed surface was slick and icy, but edgeable. Suspect that much of this iciness was caused by melting of the bed surface due to friction.