Quick report
The wet snow grains on the snow surface are maturing and draining liquid water, making surface instabilities less reactive than earlier this week. Refreeze quality has also been improving, with a thicker and more supportive refreeze on Friday morning compared to earlier this week. There are lots of smooth surfaces out there offering good corn skiing if you time it right.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- clear
- Wind Loading
- none
- Recent Snowfall
- 0
- Snow Avail For Transport
- none
The past three days have featured warm temperatures rising to the mid-40s at 12,000' on Cinammon station, with overnight lows dropping to about 36F each night under mostly clear skies.
Snowpack
On Wednesday morning on Mt. Axtell, the refreeze was about 3" thick and broke down quickly into punchy boot-top wet snow.. This morning on Mt. Owen, the refreeze was about 6" to 8" thick and held up longer into the morning, still supportive by 9:30 a.m. Ideal corn skiing conditions above treeline were about 8 a.m. on northeast and 9:30 a.m. on south aspects. Surfaces are getting more textured and dusty below 11,000', but are still relatively smooth (apart from wet debris piles) and white above treeline.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1.5
- Type
- WL
- Count
- 4
- Aspect
- NE
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 11800 ft
Numerous D1 to D1.5 wet loose avalanches ran earlier this week; most appeared to run on Monday or Tuesday from what I could see watching from town. Mt. Owen had a D2 wet slab that ran sometime after Monday morning. These avalanches were all relatively shallow, involving the top 10" or so of recent snow that fell last week.