Quick report
- Aspect
- West
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Cracking, Collapsing, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 2560 m
- Slope Angle
- 30°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Triggered the first large, heart stopping collapse while confirming possitive propagation results in my second snowpit. And then another resounding whumpf in a low angled opening on my way back up to the backside saddle. Generally shallow snowpack in this area for this time of year. Consitent ECTPs failing cleanly on January facets in a few different areas at 14 or 15 taps.... CTM11Q1 Also triggered locallized shooting cracks around a foot deep and found myself dropping into bottomless sugary facets around trees in places.</p>
This pit was in rather shallow forested area....
My pit test show propagating failures on very weak, well developed, and loose dry faceted snow. I triggered some localized cracking up to around a foot deep and failing on the same January facet layer....
My observations today confirm my fears about lingering persistent instability in the area... The danger remains Moderate, with dangerous avalanches involving old snow possible in these kind of isolated areas with poor snow structure. Areas like this, certainly with some spacial variation, but also a more congruous weak layers and poor structure are the ones that scare me the most....
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>I think there are slopes in the area where you could trigger dangerous avalanches breaking on weak sugary or faceted snow from January. Areas with generally shallow and weak snow with a recent wind load are the most suspect. Things could get interesting in these areas with a significant load from a future storm.</p>
Some pockets of decent shallow powder, but also many areas with the surface scoured down to a rime-crust.