Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
- Collapsing
- isolated
Today we toured up to 10,500 Ft on an East aspect above Red Lake in the Virgina Lakes basin. The storm that passed through over the weekend brought the snowline down to valley floors along Highway 395 and fresh snow to the Sweetwater and White Mountains to the East. On our tour, we caught small breaks of sunshine however the day felt cold and stormy for most of the day with intense periods of blowing snow. The East aspect we were on remained mostly sheltered from the intense wind, however the other prominent peaks in the area had wind ribbons of blown snow and active loading was observed. We dug in the snow at 10,500, and we did not find the basal faceting at the base in this location. The big take home was rapid loading, fresh wind slabs, and breaks in the upper snowpack in our pit from the slab snow on the surface. We traveled cautiously. CT M Q2 down 25 cm x 2 2 ECT's however results were mixed, Sudden collapse at the base and then no results in the 2nd. Basal Facets were not obvious, no distinct layer at the base in this pit.
Avalanche
we saw evidence of a natural (presumed) in a small gully that emptied onto Big Valley Lake R1/D1.5 We had obscured visibility and did not investigate it