Quick report
- Aspect
- East
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Wind Loading
- Elevation
- 2621 m
- Slope Angle
- 37°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>We observed a wind drifted snow avalanche on a west facing slopes at 11,000' (photo below) and a dry loose avalanche in a north facing gully at 7400' (see video bottom of observation). There was current wind-loading occurring and wind-loading that had occurred over the past week. Ridge-lines, gully features and terrain features at all elevations had wind loading. </p>
Overall a very solid snowpack in this location with moist rounding facets near the ground. Weakest layer was 10" (25cm) from the surface and did not propagate with an extended column test.
The video (Woody) below shows a natural dry loose avalanche as viewed from the Aspen Grove parking lot yesterday around 1000am.
Where we traveled today the avalanche danger was moderate. We avoided steep ridge-lines with the most wind transport and did not run into any wet loose snow problems because the wind kept this problem at bay today. Higher elevation steeper terrain with more wind-loading would have a higher avalanche danger but out of the wind zone was a different story.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Photo of wind-drifted snow avalanche west facing slope 11,000'</p> <p>Wet snow was held at bay today from high winds. We saw some wet loose rollerballs at lower elevations out of the wind zone on a southeast facing slope at 7,800'</p>
Snow surface was wind-cooled damp. Out of the wind-zone in the sun the snow surface was moist and quite easy to make a snowball. In the windzone it was cooler and on the north facing slopes it was still dry snow.