Quick report
- Cracking
- specific
- Collapsing
- specific
I encountered dangerous avalanche conditions today, which warranted cautious and conservative travel. I did not observe widespread natural avalanche activity in either the middle or upper elevation bands. I selectively entered some low angle avalanche terrain comfortably, paying close attention to slope shape, and crossed the runouts of large avalanche paths. I found a lot of great skiing in sheltered terrain. I was near the boundary of the Soldier and Wood River zone and the Galena and Eastern Mountain zone. I started my tour in the WRV zone, and found very reasonable access, turning my truck around early due to snow depths, and easily traveling on skis to and from my vehicle. I traveled along many ridgelines and ribs and poked at many slopes that are conducive to producing large avalanches. With lots of stomping, I knocked some cornice chunks off, triggering small wind slabs (D1 and 1.5). These wind slabs did not step down to the 2/8 weak layer. At the end of the day, from a low angle ridgeline, I remotely triggered one relatively small persistent slab (D1.5, or a small D2) on a completely sheltered NE slope at middle elevation, well down from wind-exposed ridges. It broke where the slope angle approached 35 degrees, spanned about 150 feet wide, and ran several hundred feet vertical. This avalanche occurred in the Soldier and WRV forecast zone. A snowpit on a NW aspect at 8,700' produced ECTP 1, 2, and 3, all down 35 cm on 2-4mm FC at the 2/8 weak layer (shown in photo). This pit was in the Soldier and WRV forecast zone. The facets here both looked (square snow) and felt impressively bad. The January and early February drought surface (2/8 persistent slab) is driving all of my terrain selection. The slab over this layer is becoming thicker and denser as snowfall continues and snow settles. Today, the overlying slab was still quite soft and not particularly communicative. We are definitely trending towards widespread avalanche activity with this layer if we continue to build the slab, but we didn't get there today. MAKE NO MISTAKE: this is a terrible weak layer, and its variability only complicates the situation. With a stiffer/denser/stouter slab on top I expect to see this layer producing impressive, widely propagating avalanches on many slopes. But today wasn't the day for it.
Weather
9-10 inches of new snow. This increased a tiny as I climbed, but barely. Lots of sunshine in the morning hours, with skies beginning to close around noon and slamming shut by 1. Bands of passing snow showers in the afternoon, observed precip rates >S3, accompanied by gusty, erratic winds.
Avalanche
- Size
- D2 R1
- Type
- SS
- Aspect
- N
- Trigger
- AS
- Elevation
- 8600 ft
This was remotely triggered from an adjacent low angle ridge. It failed on the 2/8 weak layer, which presented locally as very, very weak 2-4mm facets. Completely square snow. The slab graded from F- at the top, to F+ near the bottom, with a 2 inch interval of 4F- at the very base from last week's windy storm. I coded this as a D2, but definitely on the small side of D2.