Quick report
- Red Flags
- Collapsing, Rapid Warming, Poor Snowpack Structure
Beautiful day in the mountains. We found sensitive snow above 9k on the north half of the compass in the upper reaches of Mill B. The snow felt inverted when breaking trail and made travel a bit slow. We had numerous collapses with cracks shooting 20-30 feet outwards in all directions. It seems this problem is somewhat variable but the red flags were enough to keep us off steep slopes today.
We did notice some minor wet/loose activity on west aspects, but it was not widespread, Thin clouds in the afternoon might have helped keep the snow slightly colder.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>I wanted to make a note of the poor structure we experienced in upper Mill B South today. We had many large collapses on gentle terrain facing NW through NE above 9,000ft. The weak layer seemed sensitive in this area, and the new snow has had a chance to settle into enough of a slab to cause problems. </p> <p>We did not dig down to look closer at the weak layer but I'm guessing it was about 10"-16" down depending on location and wind loading. </p> <p> </p>