Quick report
- Cracking
- specific
- Collapsing
- specific
Collapsing was frequent in any area where the wind has stiffened the snow surface or built thick drifts. In sheltered terrain, no signs of instability were found, but the snowpack structure is still poor.
Cracking and collapsing on slopes above 8800' on S, W and E facing wind loaded slopes. Several of these collapses went 100'+ in front of me.Weather
- Air Temp
- 20s
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Wind Loading
- light
- Rain Elevation
- 7500
- Recent Snowfall
- Trace-2
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
Mostly cloudy skies and intermittent light snowfall. At 9:30 the temp in the parking lot was 23* (7300'). Light SW ridge top winds with moderate gusts.
Snowpack
New Snow & Surfaces: A trace to 2cm of new snow (graupel and stellars) fell onto a variety of surfaces depending on aspect and elevation. A razor-thin rain crust is below this new snow, disappearing above 7000'. On steep solar slopes, up to 2 cm fell onto a thin sun crust.
Weak Layers: On all aspects observed today, weak layers buried on 12/7 and 12/13 were easily found. On NW and NE terrain, these weak layers were unreactive in stability test (ECTN 17 & 12), with no cracking or collapsing. Collapsing was felt on SW, SE and E facing wind loaded slopes, and propagated in stability tests. (E,9400', HS: 84 cm , ECTP2 @ 64), (SW, 9500', HS 94 cm, ECTP11 @ 59). E and SE facing wind loaded slopes harboring a crust-facet-crust combination had the largest collapses and preformed the worst in stability tests.