Quick report
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Heavy Snowfall, Wind Loading, Cracking, Poor Snowpack Structure
1. Easily triggered wind slab on E aspect 7,400 ft. 12" deep, F hardness
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>The wind slabs we were able to trigger were still very soft, F hardness. These were more isolated than I had thought before we headed up and with the amount of wind on the ridge.</p> <p>There has to be areas down low where the surface hoar was left in tact you could find more reactive storm slabs. Non standard stability tests showed no reactivity in the new snow. Which leads me to believe that there is some bonding between the old surface and new snow.</p>
Hard to tell with all the wind what the New snow depth actually was but the Ben Lomond Peak station said 4" so we will go with that. On Dead tree I was unable to find any touchy wind drifts. New snow seemed to be bonding well with the old snow surface around 8,200 feet on a N aspect. On more exposed wind loaded slopes we were able to get some propagation up to a foot deep on test slopes, but still not fast moving slides the bed surface is not slick enough or maybe the new snow is starting to bond better because of the new snow density. At upper elevations I bet you would find harder deeper wind slabs just with the amount of wind we saw today.