Quick report
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall, Wind Loading, Cracking, Collapsing, Rapid Warming, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>We had almost everything going on, although the rapid warming took place today. The yurt we accessed had either very low angle terrain (quite hard to ski with the amount of snow received), or high angle terrain which was much more then what we wanted to jump on given the load and winds. We did not see any avalanches, although a very small test slope with a cornice drop resulted in new snow sluffing</p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Winds were cranking up high, creating very slabby conditions. The storm came in with very little wind, which created a bit of a density inversion, although it was difficult to get on anything steep enough to test this hypothesis. </p> <p>Rapid warming was a significant issue today. I had this as problem 2 because even with the poor snow pack structure, it was hard to initiate anything in CT's and ECT's, and with the limited amount of cracking and collapsing we had, I do not believe this brought the persistent slab up to problem 2, except maybe in terrain where significant wind loading had occured.</p>
Heavy snowfall Friday and Saturday on top of a relatively shallow snowpack for someone used to the wasatch (100 cm). On our hike in to the yurt, it was noted after penetrating through a stout melt-freeze crust, it was damp facets to the ground. With this being the case, I expected that a load of this amount would contribute to much more cracking and collapsing, although we only noticed one small collapse, although a good amount of cracking.