Quick report
- Aspect
- North
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Cracking, Collapsing, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 2499 m
- Slope Angle
- 28°
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>The wind wreaked havoc on the snow surface over the past couple of days. All of our new snow is now packed into firm wind slabs. While skiing, I cut a couple of small slopes that were loaded, and didn't see a hole lot of energy releasing, just cracking and collapsing. The slabs were very firm.</p> <p>This was tricky. After that surface hoar received last Wednesday, I was curious if that was still buried in our snow pack. While digging, I was able to find that buried surface hoar about 10-20CM down depending on the area. It was not apparent on solar aspects due to the crusts built up creating vapor barriers. I don't think this problem is wide spread but it is definitely out there on a lot of aspects. ECTN 21 Down 10CM . I had partial propagation, but not a lot of energy moving through the snow pack upon fracture.</p>
Today, the surface skied really fast, We skied low angle north aspects that had slight wind crusts formed, but sheltered areas skied very well. The skiing was fast. Definitely wind effected on many aspects, and and the new snow from the weekend, has been transported and formed relatively hard wind slabs.