Quick report
- Cracking
- specific
Rain saturated snow with glide cracks on most steep east and south slopes tree line to 5,000'. No observations above 5,000' Temps well above freezing and moderate rains persisted through early afternoon. From the tree line to 5,000', there were glide cracks at the top of almost every steep east or south aspect slope. Heavy rains erased any signs of loose wet avalanches that may have occurred at these elevations Friday or Saturday. I don't know what was happening above 5,000'
Weather
- Air Temp
- 40
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Rain Elevation
- 8000'
- Recent Snowfall
- none (heavy rain)
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
Steady rain, winds to 20 mph at 5,000', temps well above freezing, dark with moderate fog. Rains largely ended by 12:30 PM but remained cloudy with sprinkles.
Snowpack
Soft rain-saturated snow about a foot deep at the tree line. No obvious structure within the snow pack. Ridges were mostly rock with fragile snow bridges. Valleys had more snow but I didn't want to visit them while the rain was still falling. Too foggy and risky to visit slopes above 5,000' today.
Avalanche
There is a canyon that runs along the east side of the route at 6700' that levels into a deep channel by Chocolate Falls. '. About 1/3 of a mile uphill of Chocolate falls, there were areas of flattened and broken trees and dirty snow as far as 50-75 feet from the channel rim and 50' above the channel floor. It appears that an avalanche came down the channel, was deflected off a rock wall on the east side of the channel, then spilled over the west side where it knocked down more trees. I was unable to find a terminal debris pile and I don't know at what altitude it started. The best guess is that it ran before the recent rains.