Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Pay attention to wind slabs, depth hoar, and surface hoar.</p>
We dug a test pit on the north side of Julie's glade, at approximately 10,700'. It was 100 cm deep. Our ECT 5 had an easy shear 15 cm down from the surface which failed on graupel. As we continued the ECT, the middle section of the pit would not move. There's approximately 20 cm of depth hoar from the early September storm. These facets at the ground were a bit moist when compressed in my glove. The 2 photos below show the snowpit layers.
Pictures of surface hoar crystals and the valley fog below the mountains
Snowpack
Observed extensive surface hoar throughout the glades and meadows above 9400'. This will become a potential buried weak layer when the Lasals get new snow. (We skied in the same area on Friday and the surface hoar crystals were larger than on Thanksgiving day.) The other major problem is how the wind caused extensive scouring throughout the central peaks of the Lasals. We observed many wind pillows and skied along several wind rolls on our route to the North woods.