Quick report
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Wind Loading, Cracking
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Ice ice ice! It's under pretty much everything right now. Even the windblown face of Patsy Marley had chunks of it scattered within the windblown powder, adding surprises to every turn.</p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Most East facing chutes looked to have enough powder blown in to make them appear nearly skiable, but it's all windblown snow on ice waiting for a trigger. Don't be the trigger. North and West facing chutes looked to have sloughed naturally during the night. On top of the hard ice, I think you would have to be crazy to try anything steep until we either get some warmer temps or more snow.</p>
2" of dust on crust. The new snow was not well bonded to the sheet of ice beneath it, at all altitudes and elevations from the base of Grizzly Gulch all the way up to Wolverine. I had hoped that the protected high altitude chutes between 10-11k would have retained some powder, but everything but the most protected treed gullies I crossed had iced over before the dusting came in.
Along steep terrain (~40 degrees and steeper), a drag of the ski pole across the dust would start it sliding all the way to the runouts, although it slid rather slowly. West and North facing chutes had naturally sloughed a good portion of the new dust by the time the sun started making them visible. East facing are wind loaded and will likely shed their coat with the slightest trigger. THC appeared to be the only East facing chute that sloughed by my visit around sunrise, probably on the nice slick bed surface of last weeks reported slide there.