Quick report
- Red Flags
- Rapid Warming
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>We were a bit worried that even the north facing slopes would get wet with the very warm temperatures plus clouds. But I found that north facing remained cold and dry today.</p> <p>The main problem is wet slide potential (see below).</p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>The main problem I found was wet slide potential. The thin snowpack areas were very punchy late in the afternoon and at times I plunged through to the ground and had a bit of a pig wallow to get myself unstuck. I tried to get some video of kicking off rollerballs on steep, soggy slopes. Of course, the good ones happened when I did not have the camera out and when I did get the camera out, we just punched through to the ground and wallowed. A moose can make this look graceful but not a skier. I'm glad I did not tweak a knee. It was on a small, southwest facing test slope and decided I did not want to ski the Emmas back to Alta at that point. We decided to live and fight another day and beat a retreat back down the Grizzly road. </p> <p>Having said this, most of the soggy slopes are supportable with several inches of mush on top. But avoid them in the afternoon, especially tomorrow when it's supposed to be extremely warm. Watch for terrain traps for wet sluffs and rollerballs. </p>
Still some surprisingly nice, dense, dry, creamy old snow on northerly aspects above 9,000'. But anything off aspect has sun and heat crusts. All the popular slopes are tracked out. Slopes facing the south half of the compass are quite wet. I did not get out until afternoon but I would bet the corn snow was good in the morning but got soft pretty quickly. Corn might be the best game in town right now but with just a shallow refreeze if that. Get it quick.