Thar SE Shoulder

fchristian , Thursday 19th December, 2024 4:15PM

Skied up Thar shoulder in some nice hot pow. Breakable crust 5cm deep BTL, at TL crust was ~20cm deep on average with some loaded pockets up to 40cm. Conditions were noticably warm from the get go and we carefully avoided exposure to open terrain. As we climbed the snow become significantly more wet and consolidated with ongoing warm temps, and we started seeing shooting cracks on steeper slopes, which were more pronounced in wind-loaded pockets. Turned around ~100m below summit when it started to rain, which ended up being light and short-lived. Shooting cracks increased in depth to about 20cm. Shooting cracks were occurring on an interface within the storm snow, not on the crust.

2 degree air temp at 1800m at 11:30, some light start/stop drizzle <5mm while we were in the field

Observed several loose wet sz1 on our way down as we passed under the cliff band that spans from about 1650-1700m. Trigger not determined.