Avalanche

Skyline area

Josh HirshbergStevens Pass
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Weather

Air Temp
30
Cloud Cover
few
Wind Loading
light
Snow Avail For Transport
small smounts

East flow kept temperatures cooler than they could've been. Light east winds with moderate gusts.

Snowpack

Sun exposed ESE-WSW slopes were getting moist and heavy. Instability increased rapidly on these slopes around noon. Lots of tree bombs and rollerballs.  Shaded slopes stayed dry and provided excellent skiing and less reactive conditions. 

We found up to 59cm of recent snow (since roughly the 22nd). The underlying, rain-saturated snow is partially frozen, including a couple of significant crusts. Storm interfaces are healing, becoming difficult to trigger in shaded, wind-sheltered terrain. 

 

A profile at 5,280ft, NW. HS 320cm. Boot Pen of 70cm. HST 59cm of recent storm snow, dry. Generally good bonds within storm snow and at 2/22(?) interface of meltforms/crust and more recent, drier snow.

↓41cm: CTM(RP) on DF/RG, 0.3-0.5mm

↓48cm : CTH(RP) on DF/RG, 0.3-0.5mm

↓58-59cm: graupel, 2-4mm, moist, possibly buried 2/22

↓59-63cm: P+, MFcr,

↓63-80cm: 1F-K-, MF, moist

↓80-110cm:  1F, RG, moist to dry

Avalanche

We saw significant older avalanche activity (23-25th) up to D3. These were mostly larger wet loose avalanches, but we saw a handful of crowns and some very large cornice falls, mostly on Rock Mtn. Natural wet loose avalanches occurred today, starting around 11a. Many rollerballs and size D1s. Two to three larger D2s gouged into recent snow on Lichtenberg and Nason Ridge.