Quick report
- Aspect
- North
- Red Flags
- Rapid Warming, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 2621 m
- Slope Angle
- 35°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Easy pushalanches on sun affected slopes up to 12" deep. Had failure upon isolation at old facets 15 cm up from ground for CT test a few times. Facets are still very weak and intact though moist. ECTP 23 at same layer. Multiple crusts in upper half of pack holding it together. </p>
Multiple crusts throughout snowpack. Weakest snow is at the bottom. Appears that storm instabilities have stabilized well.
We purposely dug our pit on a shaded N facing slope to check on deeper weak layers. Sun affected slopes were going off by midday and pushalanches were easy to initiate on steep slopes.
Not your typical rain crust - last Thursday's storm laid down some hail which then compressed into a fairly thick and hard crust. It is supportable though easily crumbled in hand.
Deep old weak facets still intact about 10-20cm above the ground.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Easy to push loose wet snow into small avalanches on steep sun affected slopes. They easily gained snow and momentum. </p> <p>Was a bit surprised to have failures at the ground instead of near most recent "rain" crust. (see pit profile) Snowpack is gaining strength with cold overnight temps though the deep old weak facets may come back to life when temps soar or with another significant rain event. </p>
Light to medium density cold snow in shaded high to mid elevation terrain. Depth decreased with drop in elevation. Snow became wet by noon on sun affected slopes.