Quick report
Pleasant day touring east of WMR. • No signs of instability during our travels today. • 2-3 inches of recent snow has mostly fallen as grapple. • PWL (12/7 surface hoar) approximately 11 inches below the surface on sheltered/shaded slopes at middle elevations. • Winds remained light most of the day, and we did not encounter any areas with a stiffening slab overlying the PWL. • Around 230pm winds and snowfall rate ramped up significantly, with strong gusts from the WNW. This harsh weather occurred just as we were leaving fiberglass hill and returning in bounds. Conditions were noticeably more tranquil near the bottom of Chair 7 and on the summit of Big Mountain. We wondered if this strong wind event was isolated this afternoon or just very short lived? • Glide cracks and a potential glide avalanche observed on Dorothys. • Zoomed in photo attached is a bit grainy, but the glide cracks are easily seen. Whether or not an avalanche occurred recently is unconfirmed from this distance. It might just be a rippled surface below the cracks that looks like old debris. • Glide avalanches have been observed on this exact slope in past seasons, and are fairly common due to the steep beargrass ground cover.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Wind Loading
- none
- Recent Snowfall
- 7
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Mostly Cloudy day with light grauple showers on and off. Winds were light out of the west most of the day until about 230pm when we briefly experienced moderate winds with strong gusts out of the WNW. This short lived, but strong wind event was accompanied by S2-S2+ snowfall rates.
Snowpack
Quick test pit at 6250' on a north facing slope. • HS 120cm • 2-3 inches 24hour snow. New snow was mostly grauple. • Notable PWL (12/7 Surface Hoar) is an easily identifiable grey stripe about 11 inches below the surface. • The overlying slab of snow fallen since 12/7 was F - 4F, increasing in hardness with depth. This slab lacked cohesion in the terrain we traveled through today and did not produce propagating results on the PWL in our large column tests. • ECTN21 @ 12/7 surface hoar, ECTN19 @ 12/7 Surface Hoar, ECTX •Bonus hits during our tests resulted in ECTN30+ @ underside of AR crust on small rounding facets.