Snowpack

Avalanche Peak

Savage (Off Duty)Galena Summit & Eastern Mtns
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Quick report

Short recreational tour, so no formal pits or stability tests. No obvious signs of instability. The upper 8" (20cm) of the snowpack is ugly (weak), but that is not affecting the current stability.    

No collapsing in several meadows without tracks, but there has been a lot of traffic throughout this area - most slopes in this area could have already collapsed.

Weather

Air Temp
30s
Cloud Cover
few
Wind Loading
none
Rain Elevation
N/A
Recent Snowfall
0
Snow Avail For Transport
small smounts

PC with some high clouds, calm to light winds. Not warm/sunny enough to form surface crusts except on steep S-SW aspects while we were out in the afternoon.

Snowpack

No formal profiles, just quick hand and pole pits: HS=40-75cm from 8700-9400', shady and solar aspects

Surface=isolated 3-6mm SH and some damp snow on steep S-SW near 8700'

3-8cm DF, increasing with elevation

12/18 or 12/22 SH layer ~1cm buried upright, widespread: on steeper solars there's a degrading crust with the SH, breakable on skis...on shady aspects and margins, 4-8cm of well developed FC

Mid and lower snowpack: Losing strength and faceting, boot pen to G everywhere I got out of my skis and starting to punch through to old Oct and Nov snow while skinning on some margins and solars. No formal observations of lower layers, but easy to feel FC/DH where they existed.