Quick report
- Aspect
- North
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Cracking, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 3231 m
- Slope Angle
- 28°
This pit was in a cross loaded gully and not completely indicative of the area's snowpack...or lack thereof. Gullies like these would be the only places to ski in the alpine at the moment so I thought it was worth digging and having a look. CT tests reflected moderate effort to fail with Q2 quality shears with the wind slab failing first.
This pit was on a wind loaded east facing slope at about 10,600. The pack was weaker than the north facing slope I had previously looked at and had several crust layers in it. The wind slad, albeit not very thick, was very sensitive and failed upon column isolation every time.
The Mirror lake Highway is closed and snowpacked from the Soapstone Basin parking area. Minimal coverage is keeping most riders to the road. Bony conditions in the alpine and in classic Uinta style, lots of wind affected snow. Not a lot of places to have to worry about avalanches but with the wind combined with the weak, shallow snow pack, getting caught in one would make for a nasty ride. Overall a low danger.
In case you wanted to go there.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Scattered pockets of wind slabs of varying thicknesses sitting on weak faceted snow. </p>
Low tide in the Uinta alpine. Snow machines sticking mostly to the road. Bony conditions not making for great sliding. What snow is there has been wind affected to varying degrees.