Quick report
- Aspect
- Northeast
- Red Flags
- Cracking, Collapsing
- Elevation
- 2408 m
- Slope Angle
- 30°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Cracks up to 100' on stiff wind drifted slopes with 5-10" of wind slabs over fist hard faceted snow. Audible whoomphing and collapsing on the same slopes. Both on the ascent and descent. </p>
We got multiple collapses on this particular wind drift. Snowpit dug on a wind drifted section of snow where we observed cracking and felt collapsing on both the ascent and descent. Anywhere from 5-10" of 1 finger hardness wind slab over very weak fist hard faceted snow. Extended column test results at this location showed a very weak upper snowpack with clean shears and a noteable collapse of this weak faceted layer. These areas of wind drifted snow were easy to spot on the surface. With new snow they may be more difficult to find in the future. We avoided areas over 30 degrees with similar patterns of wind loading.
Video of very small soft slab avalanche triggered on a road cut above the skin track.
Photo below of location. North facing 6400'
Snowpack
Combination of supportable chalky wind pockets (that were great skiing for a few turns) combined with breakable wind crusts (not great skiing) and sand box facets where we were sinking to the ground with skis on.