Quick report
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Heavy Snowfall, Wind Loading, Rapid Warming
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Main red flag today was recent snow, which was mostly well behaved, other than a few wind loaded pockets. Many slopes were skied without problem today.</p> <p>Some warming noted on south aspects.</p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>As noted in the avalanche observation from Silver Fork, it was possible to find some pockets of wind affected snow, even well off the ridgelines with avalanche potential. This seemed to be more the exception than the rule however, and I'd expect many of these to be more difficult to trigger by tomorrow. </p>
In the morning, south facing snow was cold but a little bit of sun and warming turned it to tricky to ski, manky for Utah mid day. South will probably not ski well tomorrow. Snow depths on south facing slopes in Grizzly Gluch and off the Emmas were also wildly variable due to wind drifting. One turn would be deep wind drifted snow and the next would be a few inches over a melt freeze crust.
In some places, in Grizzly Gulch, I noticed new low density snow above the old melt freeze crust, then a wind slab, which was then capped by more low density snow. This can make spotting wind affected snow more difficult. It may also point to a period of intense winds at some point during yesterday's storm.
On other more shaded and protected aspects, snow was deep and pretty consistent. For the most part the old crusts were not a factor. Other than along the ridgelines and some small pockets snow was not very wind affected. Steeper north facing shots along ridges had sluffed naturally during the storm.