Quick report
8" of new snow on top of a firm crust made for physical "dust-on-crust" riding conditions today. Light new snowfall and moderate blowing snow resulted in poor visibilty above treeline, so we stayed at and below treeline today, where no signs of instability were observed within the new snow. However, the one time we had reasonable visiblity above treeline, we saw a small natural wind slab avalanche on a NE aspect at 8700ft. More may have occured that we couldn't see.
Lots of active wind loading observed, and one D1 natural wind slab avalanche above treeline that we could see. We didn't go above treeline today. Test slopes in near treeline terrain didn't produce any cracking.Weather
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- moderate
- Recent Snowfall
- 20
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
Windy with light snowfall, blowing snow, and poor visibility
Snowpack
8" of new snow above a firm crust. New snow was rimed and/or graupel. We did not see signs of instability at the new/old interface. In places where the crust was fragile, there was early stage faceting just underneath it.
Avalanche
One recent natural wind slab avalanche observed (very shallow and only a D1), but due to poor visibility I'm not sure how many others occurred that we just couldn't see.