Quick report
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Wind Loading, Collapsing
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>We encountered some collapsing on non-solar aspects. There were large PWL avalanches on all aspects except south in Gold Basin. For a moderate storm, there were way more large avalanches than expected on E-N-W aspects. The majority of the non-solar alpine zone of Talking Mountain slid big in this last cycle. We definitely crossed a tipping point and there is still ample hang fire to be aware of. </p>
Even west aspects went big this last cycle
More huge crowns on N-E faces
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Although the last warm cycle strengthened south aspects, everything else is a ticking time bomb out there right now. The good news is that the snowpack is deeper and stronger, so as things settle it will become harder to trigger out PWL, but if you do, yikes.</p> <p>Despite the relatively tame wind we've had recently (by our standards), there are substantial wind slabs cross loaded on much of the northern aspects of Gold Basin. I suspect these loaded areas were a part of what caused soo many large slabs to break on the PWLs this last cycle.</p>
The new snow from the last cycle was still skiing very nice today. We skied solar aspects and only encountered a couple zipper crusts on the most solar exposures. Tomorrow there will be much more crust on solars, but still some safe powder to be found for the brave and willing.