Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
- Collapsing
- isolated
Toured to 2600’ looking to see how much snow had fallen on the buried surface hoar and if the weight of the new snow was making this weak layer more reactive. We did not see recent avalanches. There was anywhere from 4 to ~12” of soft snow. All of our hand pits had large surface hoar in them. On our way down we found a small test slope that produced an avalanche. The crown was almost 2’ deep and it failed on buried surface hoar. We got mixed results in our pits. Over the weekend the buried surface hoar may be easier to trigger as more snow and strong winds add stress to thos weak layer.
We did hear several localized whumpfs in a small meadow and triggered shooting cracks about 10’ around us.Weather
- Cloud Cover
- obscured
- Wind Loading
- moderate
- Rain Elevation
- ~1500'
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
A mix bag of sunny moments and flat light as low clouds brought pulses of intense snowfall. Total snow while we were out there amounted to around 1”. Winds were light on our trip but the ridgetop winds looked like they were transporting snow. In the afternoon the sun was baking southerly and west facing slopes.
Snowpack
The crust from this last round of storms seemed to go away around 1600'. We dug two quick pits. At 2100’ we had concerning results on the layer of buried surface hoar about 20” deep (50cm). (ECTP20 on 10mm SH). At 2300’ we did not get concerning results and the surface hoar was buried 14” deep (40cm).