Quick report
Today may have marked the transition from a honeymoon phase of stability over the past few weeks, into a more dynamic winter to spring snowpack. The reasons we discussed were new snow accumulation, mid-day warming, strong solar radiation, and the development of a persistent weak layer. We felt confident overall but backed off from steep terrain where a shallow snowpack existed around rocks, where we could most likely trigger a slide. Our layer of concern was a double crust, crust-facet combo weak layer down 30-50cm that propagated in an extended column test on a N-aspect at 4,000ft.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- clear
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Recent Snowfall
- 30
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
Low clouds broke down early morning. Could see the next front moving in from the distance. The sun was warm when there wasn't wind. Lower elevations near the road were melting out.
Snowpack
On the tour, we evaluated the crust located down 30-50cm. One quick test pit at 800m revealed ECTX. However, higher up at 4,000ft a more pronounced double crust could be felt with a ski-pole probe. We dug down and ran two extended column tests both with ECTP30 down 50cm that failed on 1-2mm facets between the two crusts.
Avalanche
- Size
- D3
- Aspect
- NE
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 5100 ft
Noticed this natural slab avalanche off Mount McDonald that appeared as an outlier but also matched with what we saw in our pit.