Quick report
- Aspect
- Northeast
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Heavy Snowfall, Wind Loading, Collapsing, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 2652 m
Stormy tour up Steam Mill today. We observed 4 of the 5 red flags : recent avalanches, heavy snowfall, collapsing, and wind drifted snow. Most of the day we had strong winds coming from the south and snow was falling hard. We experienced a lot of "whumpfs" and could feel them move under our feet, but didn't see any cracking on the surface. There was evidence of wind drifted snow (other than the wind that we experienced) in the form of cornices on Northern facing slopes. We triggered these to slide from roughly 12 feet away. A good day to play in low angle powder.
On the tour, we intentionally triggered a few cornice drops that caused a slide. Not very large. Maybe 5 inches deep, 12 feet across. I think it was just the wind drifted snow that slid.
I'll attach a couple of photos of two different ones.