Quick report
- Red Flags
- Cracking, Collapsing, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>I triggered several audible collapses today, and it's been over a week since our last storm. These were in drifted low angled areas where a variable slab exists capping very weak sugary snow or facets. Most of these also cracked with barely visible hair-line shooting cracks up to around a foot deep (25cm). One wumpf shot cracks around 5 meters in radius around me in the center. </p>
The December snow cracked easily and failed as a slab when disturbed by a sled.
I triggered several audible collapses today. Most also cracked with super thin, barely visible cracks around a foot deep. Old wind slabs in lower angled terrain on very weak faceted snow.
Here are a couple views of Double Top Mountain in upper Steep Hollow from the East. The starting zones are well "primed;" the anchors are buried and smoothed in by very weak faceted snow, and we are set up for large avalanches when a good storm or two lays down a cohesive slab layer.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>The wumpfing and cracking indicate some potential for triggering an old wind slab, now a persistent slab, in steep terrain. i was in an area that appears not to have been traveled and tracked yet this season, but I was still surprised by the frequency of the collapses so long after the most recent storm.</p>
I found meadows with some nice fast recrystallized surface snow and surface hoar. Low angled slopes rode well. In many areas i would sink through weak sugary snow all the way to the ground. I did not dare leave the packed trail for fear of dropping into the structureless faceted snow or hitting shallowly buried rocks.