Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
Today in the Virginia Lakes area we found on-going stormy weather and 1-4 inches of new snow with higher amounts in isolated drifts. Overall, most terrain had a patchwork of shallow new snow and firm crust. Windward slopes were scoured and only favored catchments held deeper drifts. Riding down in near tree line terrain had a dust on crust feel, however periodic moments of sunshine were beginning to warm and consolidate the fresh snow by afternoon. Shooting cracks on a small wind-drifted feature near tree line. Several small soft wind slab avalanches were intentionally triggered on this same test slope.
Weather
- Air Temp
- near freezing
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- intense
- Rain Elevation
- 7500
- Recent Snowfall
- 5-10 cm
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Light to moderate snow showers with moderate to strong W winds. The sun would come out periodically, but the clearing wouldn't last for long. Later in afternoon there was more of a clearing trend.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1
- Type
- SS
- Count
- 3
- Aspect
- N
- Trigger
- AS
- Elevation
- 9800 ft
2 natural D1 wind slab avalanches were observed above tree line. Intentional triggered wind slabs near tree line were about 15 cm thick and soft, failing on a firm melt freeze crust (old/new interface). A very thin layer of small near surface facets was on top of the crust at this particular N facing test slope feature.