Quick report
- Cracking
- specific
- Collapsing
- specific
An 8-12 inch thick slab of recent snow sits atop weak, sugary facets on many middle and upper elevation slopes that face away from the sun. This slab + weak layer produced cracking, collapsing, and unstable snowpack test scores.
We experienced a few localized collapses on the ridge and initiated some cracks on shadier aspects where we found a slab over weaker snow.Weather
- Air Temp
- Upper 30s
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Wind Loading
- light
- Rain Elevation
- 9,500
- Recent Snowfall
- 0
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
It was a warm and humid day. Afternoon high temps hit 47 F near Galena Lodge. Skies were mostly cloudy with some sun streaks. Wind was calm at times but also intermittently blew moderate to strong from the W and NW, moving snow along upper elevation ridgelines.
Snowpack
Rain/Wet Snow:
The snowpack was completely saturated until about 8,500'. We found evidence of rain up to ~9,500'.
Slab+Weak Layer:
We found a 20-30 cm (8-12 in) thick 4F slab resting atop 10 cm of 2 mm facets. Failures, including small slabs, hand pits, and formal tests (ECTP1), returned failures in the upper 2 cm of the facets. We noticed that in some windier areas, the facet layer had been heavily disrupted or stripped before burial.
Avalanche
We only picked out a few smallish avalanches in the Smokys. Visibility was not the best in that direction, and it was a ways off. We did not observe any obvious large avalanches in our vicinity in the Boulders.