Quick report
- Red Flags
- Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>There were no major red flags during our tour, but as winds increased throughout the day and as snowfall continues overnight, hard wind slab could easily develop atop a significant amount of low-density snow. However, during today's tour, we encountered moderate avalanche hazard at low and mid elevations.</p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Wind-loading occurred throughout the day and will likely continue overnight, leading to much harder slabs than we saw today.</p> <p>There's still plenty of potential for soft slabs and sluffs in the New Year's snowfall as well as the additional snowfall today and overnight.</p>
There were approximately 4" of new snow present at low elevations around 1030 this morning. By our ski out at 1600, additional snowfall brought the new snow depth to 8" or perhaps more. The ice crust is under approximately 60cm of F to 4F snow in protected locations. Snow immediately adjacent to the crust both above and below was decomposing and mixed forms--the facets appear to be rounding some. Below the mid-pack crust was additional 1F snow to the ground crust.
New snowfall was quite dense and surface density increased throughout the day with wind loading and increasing precipitation. In sheltered locations, we found powder, but generally skied punchy, dense snow with the occasional bit of wind buff.