Quick report
Predominantly 24 hour old wet loose avalanches; no new observed.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- scattered
- Wind Loading
- light
- Rain Elevation
- 4800
- Recent Snowfall
- 40
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Calm. small amounts of previous wind loading seen at the ridgeline (5200ft+) but not noted in other places. At 10am - very light high thin overcast, slowly increasing to overcast by late afternoon.
Snowpack
Snow began on sheltered valley roads at 2500-3000ft. There was a good refreeze overnight on old snow surfaces in areas that had received rain (below 4800ft) that didn't start softening until midday. Softening was much quicker on south aspects. Above the previous day's rain/snow line at 4800ft north-facing aspects, especially steeper ones, had dry but heavy snow. We didn't find any frozen south-facing aspects, as they'd softened and the surface had wetted by the time we'd gotten to them. By early afternoon snowmobiles were sinking into the previously wet andre frozen snow by almost 6 inches- now spraying slush. Boots were sinking about a foot deep.
We dug pits at 5400 ft on north and south aspects. The south side had a wet surface and moist snow all the way down to crusts, already well consolidated at about 20cm deep where we were. On the opposite side of the slope on the northerly aspect the new snow layer was closer to 40cm and dry. Both sides had good bonding with the underlying crusts and stability tests all had progressive failures with compression tests but none that propagated in an Extended Column Test.
No wind effect was noted, aside from a few wind lips along the ridgeline 5200-5400ft. No cracking or instabilities indicating wind slab concerns were found anywhere we traveled.
Avalanche
I tried to trigger wet loose avalanches on south-facing slopes by kicking snow down and throwing snowballs with no success. Several small rollerballs, D1 and a few D2 wet loose avalanches from yesterday were visible on all aspects both near and far.