Avalanche

Baker/Cunard

Miller, Antonioli, WildeGalena Summit & Eastern Mtns
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Quick report

Cracking
isolated
Collapsing
isolated

Boy oh boy was it windy out there today. Moderate gusting strong W winds were actively moving snow above 7500' in the Baker Creek drainage. Open slopes and gullies were actively being crossloaded and wind-slabs were beginning to form. We observed cracking, collapsing, and triggered a couple of very small soft wind slab avalanches (indicative of what's to come?). We kept our terrain choices conservative and mostly stuck to ridgelines given the rapidly changing avalanche conditions.

Triggered a couple of very small, thin wind slab avalanches that broke 6-10" down (on the new/old interface) in cross loaded terrain and spotted one or two natural storm slabs (D1.5) that appeared to have occurred within the past 24 hours. We also observed localized cracking and a couple of solid collapses in ridgetop locations with shallow (<130cm deep) snowpacks.

Weather

Cloud Cover
scattered
Wind Loading
moderate
Recent Snowfall
20-30
Snow Avail For Transport
large amounts

Variable cloud cover (S2+ flurries with obscured skies to partly cloudy with big sun sucker holes) with moderate gusting strong W winds. The winds were actively transporting lots of snow.

Snowpack

Still finding weak snow in the middle elevations below the recent 20-40cm of new snow and often underneath a crust. The old surface crust ranges from thick and supportable (west) to thin and decomposing (NNW) with well developed but rounding facets below.

Avalanche

Triggered a couple of very small, thin wind slab avalanches that broke 6-10" down (on the new/old interface) in cross loaded terrain.