Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
- Collapsing
- isolated
This will be obvious to anyone who has been up high the past few days, but there has been 20"-40" of snow, depending on the aspect and wind load. Access is super difficult (see photo #1), from Friday's ski. Things had consolidated a bit on Saturday. Given the 2 hours of winching and digging to get turned around, I didn't pull my shovel out of my pack while skiing. Pole and hand shears showed light, unconsolidated snow on top of the heavier wind-driven snow from the start of the storm. Each step had isolated cracking under foot, but no propagation. I tried hard to get some convexities to pop on some test slopes, but just created little sluffs. I didn't see any old crowns or evidence of avalanches. It was kind of eerie knowing it should be unstable, but not seeing, hearing or really feeling any instabilities. I skied in the sheltered trees, (W NW), which skied amazing. Saturday was more of the same except no visibility. Some settling around trees was noticeable. I would say, don't trust your tests enough to find yourself in unforgiving terrain. This will settle out, and there is always another day!