Quick report
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall, Wind Loading, Cracking, Poor Snowpack Structure
Nice tour up into Days today to see how the new snow was coming in and how it was bonding (or not) to the older snow and thin crusts from last week. We did find this crust at the bottom of CSR but it wasn’t as prevalent higher up. Snow depths in the two locations I probed (around 9600, E facing) were both around 160 cm. Last week’s storm and today's new snow both overlay a stout slab, perhaps 1F+ or P.
As far as the snow that fell today: it was very touchy - lots of shooting cracks on the skin track and as we descended; and we ski cut some small, shallow storm slabs in some isolated steeper terrain. Photos of both below.
The red flags we saw in the field, as well as the well documented and still active PWL, kept us off sustained steeper pitches and out of avalanche paths. Fortunately amazing powder skiing was found off the ridges in the trees.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>The forecasted high PI hit midmorning, right in the middle of our ski tour. We saw S-4 snowfall judging by our skin track on our second lap. This new snow was super sensitive, easily cracking on the snow from last week. </p> <p>Along the upper ridge lines of our tour we observed strong winds blowing the new snow, as well as calm to moderate winds throughout the rest of our walk. Wind seemed to be mostly blowing from the WNW around midday. </p>