Quick report
Widespread activity flushed nearly all of the persistent slab problem away in the bowls that we looked into on Axtell. The bedsurfaces offered stable but thin coverage (<2' of snow) that is faceting once again and will certainly be problematic under the next slab. Furthermore, surface hoar growth above near surface faceting reached from valley floor to about 12,000' here, smaller at higher elevations. Where we traveled on lower-angle slopes with the full snowpack, it was also quiet underfoot and produced non-propagatng test results.
No signs of instability underfoot. All of the avalanche activity ran about 5 to 6 days ago during the storm.Weather
- Cloud Cover
- clear
- Wind Loading
- none
- Recent Snowfall
- 0
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
Snowpack
The upper 25 cm or so is morphing into 1.0 mm near surface facets, weaker on the many shallow bedsurfaces. The intact slab is starting to decay below treeline. Near the treeline, there's still a 4F to 1F midpack slab on low angle terrain, but our one test here produced non-propagating results on a facet layer that is rounding/strengthening. Surface hoar growth was widespread on open, shady aspects up to ridgetop; up to 20 mm near valley floor, decreasing to just a few mm in size near treeline.
Avalanche
- Size
- D2.5
- Type
- SS
- Count
- 12
- Aspect
- SE
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 12200 ft
Extensive avalanche activity, some of it very large in size, across all of the bowls that we viewed on Axtell. 2nd Bowl to Quill, and Pencil to Wang Chung all ran wall to wall about 2 to 3 feet deep fairly late in the AR storm with about 8" on their bedsurfaces. The debris out of Pencil/Wang Chung ran impressively far, easily a D3. 4th Bowl ran earlier in the storm and the crown wasn't as distinct and the debris wasn't as extensive. 1st Bowl appeared to have many separate slides that released at various times throughout the storm. It was difficult to find any steep terrain unaffected by avalanche activity; the only intact snowpacks were small pieces of hangfire above the crowns on moderate slope angles.