Spruce Peak
Quick report
- Cracking
- widespread
- Collapsing
- widespread
We toured up the west side of Spruce Peak near the long trail and observed many signs of instability. Early on in the tour we felt a collapse in the snowpack and saw a small slab remote trigger about 200 or so feet above us. Throughout the tour we noticed a variety of crown lines in steeper terrain, usually right at the point of convexity. We hard about 3 or so woomphs throughout the day. Later on we skied a west facing drainage off spruce that has a small open patch guarded by an ice bulge. I intentionally ski cut a small wind slab formed by beneath the ice bulge, which ran about 100 feet before arresting in low angle terrain below. All the slabs we triggered failed on the depth hoar layer that sits just beneath the new snow at low elevation. While we stuck to small terrain features today and didn’t venture above 2000 feet, I imagine steeper terrain in the notch, near the hight of land, where terrain is much steeper and more sustained, is capable of producing much larger and more destructive avalanches. The slabs we observed at low elevation were small and shallow, but deeper gullies receiving more wind transport could hold much larger wind slabs
Avalanche
- Size
- D1
- Count
- 2
- Aspect
- W
- Trigger
- AS
- Elevation
- 1650 ft
While skinning near the long trail we remote triggered a storm about 200 feet above us. It failed on the facet layer located just beneath the new snow. We felt a light collapse before it slid.