Quick report
- Collapsing
- specific
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. We targeted wind sheltered and wind-loaded southerly aspects up to 11,000' and could not produce any signs of instability: snow was bonding well to the recent crust. This was in stark contrast to constant remotely triggered avalanche activity on east to northeast aspects, where the new snow was bonding poorly to small-grained facets or faceted crusts at the storm interface (2/17 layer), and collapsing and producing deeper avalanches (on the 2/11 facets).
Collapses typically required a soft stomp and almost always resulted in a remote trigger as we walked across the top of easterly facing start zones.Weather
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- intense
- Rain Elevation
- Nope
- Recent Snowfall
- 40 to 50
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
40 to 50 cm of new snow, periods of intense transport in wind exposed areas.
Avalanche
- Size
- D2
- Type
- SS
- Count
- 5
- Aspect
- NE
- Trigger
- AS
- Elevation
- 11200 ft
Frequent remote triggers while skinning above a steep east facing ridge. Some broke on near surface facets above the crusty storm interface (typically 45 cm deep). Some broke on the February 11 interface, about 60 to 70 cm deep. The terrain features we targeted were relatively small, so sizes were typically D1.5 or D2, and would have been larger in bigger terrain. For the record, Brie and Zach triggered more avalanches than Evan, so we are renaming the basin after ourselves.