A recipe for cracking snow

yan.kaczynski , Thursday 19th December, 2024 1:15PM

Very strong wind gusts from Shames base to ridgetop. A good recipe for wind and storm slabs today with moving snow accross all directions. Wind gusts were swirling but came mainly from the N/NE. The few new cm’s (12cm by 12h30) from yesterday and this am are already being packed down by winds and sit on very hard snow. Most of my turns produced very reactive and large shooting cracks and a few 12cm deep hard slabs. This was both at treeline and BTL in the Shames backcountry.