Quick report
We found good stability on most slopes, and felt conditions were appropriate for a tour through complex alpine terrain. We avoided freshly drifted slopes above high-consequence terrain, where there was evidence of natural activity yesterday. We intentionally triggered a pair of wind slabs on high-elevation, northerly aspects with ski stomps and cornice drops. One failed remotely on facets, and this type of instability could persist, though it appears the structure is isolated to very high, due north terrain. Cool, cloudy, breezy weather limited natural wet loose activity to a few small sluffs in extreme terrain this afternoon.
Triggered a couple of wind slabs, and noted a handful of natural wind slabs in the past 24 hours. Some slopes around Purple Mtn produced rollerballs on east and northeast aspects above treeline.Weather
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Wind Loading
- light
- Recent Snowfall
- 4 cm on Tuesday, 45 cm on Sunday/Monday
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Moderate winds, a mix of sun and clouds, one brief snow squall, cool temps.
Snowpack
On average, there's about 18" of settled storm snow (up to 30" in leeward terrain) down to the 4/26 interface, which is typically a melt-freeze crust. The interface was dry facets on a due north slope at 13,000'. The snow surface was staying dry through most of the day around the compass, but this afternoon in the far Northern Ruby Range, we found the top inch or two had gotten moist or wet on all but due north, causing numerous small rollerballs.
Avalanche
- Size
- D2
- Type
- SS
- Count
- 16
- Aspect
- E
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 12700 ft
The Ruby Range saw a natural cycle of storm and wind slabs, typically D1.5-D2 during Sunday's storm, with large avalanches up to several hundred feet wide on Owen, Afley, OBJ, Augusta, and Purple Mtn. There were a handful of small natural wind slabs and cornice falls that ran on Tuesday or Tuesday night. Today, we intentionally triggered two wind slabs on northerly aspects around 13,000'. One broke remotely about 16" deep on facets (4/26 interface), the other broke about 6" deep in storm snow. We also triggered a small wet loose avalanche below treeline on a northeast aspect this afternoon.