Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Recent northwest winds have created some wind drifted snow that would crack around skis and sleds. These were mainly on the east through southeast facing slopes and about a foot deep. I checked poor snow pack structure mainly for the south facing terrain where a recent avalanche was triggered and I was able to get a column of snow to propagate a crack, but it did take a number of hits on the shovel from the shoulder.</p>
A photo from the weekend avalanche taken across the drainage. This southeast facing slope has a steep breakover around mid slope and was likely the trigger point?
I dug a quick snow pit on a somewhat similar aspect, but a little higher on the slope and was able to get a crack to propagate across a three foot wide column of snow. It did take several hard hits from the shoulder before it did fail.
Visibility was pretty limited today with a thick cloud deck hanging around the higher terrain.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Not normally too concerned with the south facing slopes in January, but there is some buried small grained faceted about two feet deep that might be a factor in the recent sled triggered slide on a southeast facing slope.</p> <p>Northwest winds have created some wind drifted snow on east through southwest facing slopes. These would crack about a foot deep around skis and sleds.</p>
About 6-8" new snow from the Monday storm around the upper Whitney area with 4" at the trail head and damp snow around 8,000'.