Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>I did not spend much time where the wind issues were today, I wanted to look at the snow pack in the Mill Creek Drainage. It is amazing how just a few miles to the east of the north slope trailhead that the snow pack is so much weaker than the core area west of Hwy 150. Digging around here, nearly half the snow pack is facets from the ground up and these facets are large grained and fairly well developed. The Mill Creek area went through a nice avalanche cycle with the big holiday storm.</p>
I believe this was a sled triggerd slide that may have occurred around the same time as the Double Hill Avalanche on 12/26. This slope has surprised many folks and is triggered quite often. At the top of the slope is a nice wind fetch that southwest winds get channled through and drift the snow onto this northeast facing slope.
1. These large broad open areas are great places for the strong south winds to grab lots of snow and deposit it onto the leeward side where people like to ride. 2. There is usually no shortage of wind along the high terrain and much of the high peaks are scoured clean-kind of has that high Colorado look to it.
The snow pack here is so much different than the core area near Whitney, Upper Weber Canyon and the Bald Mt. area. In this snow pit the weak sugary snow at the bottom of the pack is large grained faceted snow that just falls out of the pit.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Lots of slopes on the north side of the compass were getting wind deposited snow which can quickly overload many of these shallow weak slopes that have not yet avalanched. </p> <p>Places like Mill Creek with very weak sugary snow and thinner rocky terrain would be likely areas where a person could still trigger a sizeable avalanche.</p>
There is still soft settled powder in sheltered areas, but the high exposed locations have been getting a fair amount of recent winds.