Quick report
- Cracking
- specific
We left Pinkham at 7:45am with plans to assess the bowl and ski if possible. Visibility was mixed and changing in the bowl with strong winds moving around the ~3cm of new snow observed on the sides of the Sherb/TRT. We moved cautiously and stuck to wind-scoured bed surfaces for travel. Movement into isolated pockets of deep snow in east facing, leeward ridges resulted in specific cracking, although less prolific than the last two days. Deep slabs were observed on southeast and east aspects that were sitting knee/waist deep at times on the icy bed surface. As we were traveling, we also observed some consolidation of the most recent 2-3cm of snow on southeast aspects. In the transition zone, we observed a recent avalanche crown at the top of Sluice that occurred in the last 24 hours (last in the bowl around 10AM yesterday and had not occurred yet) and debris that traveled most of the way down Chicken Rock. The R1 D1 avalanche appeared to break on the old snow surface where new snow consolidated on top of the windboard from yesterday. Skiing produced good turns between patches of rain crust and avalanche debris.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1
- Aspect
- SE
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 4700 ft
Observed an R1 D1 natural avalanche that likely occurred last evening/early morning skier's right of Sluice above Chicken Rock gully. Debris traveled 3/4 of the way down Chicken Rock. Crown was approximately 5-6cm and occurred when a fist/four finger consolidated layer broke on a one finger layer.