Quick report
We traveled up to Link Mountain to de-rime the weather station today.
- Pleasantly suprised to find nice coverage below 5000'
- The only significant avalanches we were able to see were older debris piles in the larger slide paths both off of Link Mountain and above Red Meadow Lake. Cloudy/Obscured skies limited visibility at higher elevations.
- Temps hovered around the freezing mark along the road, but cooled to mid-20s as we gained elevation.
- Although winds were light out of the SW, gusts up to 22mph along the ridgetop forced us to add an additional layer as the Wx station was cleaned off.
- 1 D1 wind slab was released on the ridge just below the Wx Station. Wind slabs were limited to small size in our location.
- We chose slopes under 35 degrees that provided fun turns and ample stoke upon returning to our sleds.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 25 on ridgetop and 32 on red meadow road
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- light
- Rain Elevation
- 2500'
- Recent Snowfall
- 2
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
cloud deck raised and lowered several times during the day. Socked in at upper whitefish lake, but raised to about 6500' before falling back down around 1600. S1 snow above 5500' with rime around 4600' on our way back to Olney.
Snowpack
We found a right side up snowpack in the Upper Whitefish Range today. This 40 cm of recent snow sat on top of the early feb crust. There was a small layer of faceted crystals that appeared to be rounding, sitting on top the the crust. Hand pits released on this layer with easy to moderate force, but often where unable to release as a slab. Instability test at 6200' revealed a ECTN27 on the small (1-2mm) faceted crystals sitting on top of the curst 40 cm below the surface. HS on our tour ranged from 150-190cm.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1 R1
- Type
- SS
- Aspect
- NE
- Trigger
- AR
- Elevation
- 7200 ft
Small wind slabs were reactive to the weight of a rider, but were limited to just below the ridgeline. There was little snow being transported on the ground.