Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
We found minor new snow avalanche problems, including sluffs on steep sunny slopes and thin pockets of slabs on steep shaded slopes.
Some ski-length cracking on switchbacks involving facets above the 3/28 crust. Similar cracking just under a thin sun crust capped by yesterday's snowfall.Weather
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Recent Snowfall
- HN = 5 cm; up to 20 cm since 3/28
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Light wind in the morning, calming throughout the day. A few clouds but mostly sunny and blue overhead.
Snowpack
Recent snow increased from a skiff at the winter trailhead to ~20 cm around 10,000'. Snow fell atop the 3/28 crust on all but the highest N-facing slopes, where the crust became hard to detect. In some places, recent snow has bonded well to a rough crust, in others, the thin slabs sheared cleanly on a small layer of facets above the crust. We were able to kick off very small (<7") thick pockety slabs on this layer in steep terrain.
Midway through the recent snow was a thin sun crust. Very thin (<2") slabs were easy to peel off the surface, failing in weak snow just below this crust. Surfaces were getting moist by midday and very steep, rocky slopes were producing rollerballs and small wet loose slides.
Avalanche
We observed a handful of small sun-induced loose snow avalanches on steep rocky SE-S-SW aspects. We triggered very small, ~7" thick slabs in steep terrain. There have been no notable recent slab avalanches.