Quick report
The trail in and out of Tepee Basin was in good condition.
There was about 12" of new snow above 8500' elevation, 4-6" below that. No collapsing or cracking and no avalanche triggered today that we saw, but human-triggered slides are likely on steep slopes. We dug a snowpit on a northeast aspect at 9300' above all the recent rain-snow lines. The snowpack was 6' deep (187cm) with F+ facets making up the foundation (buried 145cm below the surface). I was surprised that we got a failure (ECTP28 on basal facet) because they are buried so deeply. This failure and propagation were telling. I don't trust avalanche terrain or runout zones for now. This is a spooky snowpack - it is unlikely that you'll observe any signs of instability before triggering a very large slide.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- clear
- Wind Loading
- none
- Recent Snowfall
- 30
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
Avalanche
- Size
- D2 R2
- Type
- HS
- Count
- 2
- Aspect
- E
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 9400 ft
There was one very large and one large avalanche on the east/northeast aspect of Skyline Ridge, southeast of White Peak in Tepee Basin. The larger of the two broke 1,500 feet wide and up to 6 feet deep. The smaller of the two broke 300 feet wide and 3-4 feet deep. Both likely failed yesterday during the storm (12/27), as minimal new snow obscured them.