Quick report
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>No obvious red flags, but the higher up we got no only did the skiing get worse ( 2 in wind slab on top of graupel and facets) but the deeper and stouter the remaining snowpack ( one giant wind slab on top of old October facets ) got. Not a good feeling, and we did not continue all the way up.</p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>The sudden and dramatic hardness changes between the underlying wind slabs, then the mixed graupel layer, and then the wind affected layer on top, says go home. Pits showed no energy and a great reluctance to move below the top layer, but the early season snowpack, with its crazy overall depth changes and run outs full of shark teeth would mean for a really nasty ride if your feet got taken out from under you.</p> <p>Again, almost the entire snowpack in this immediate zone is a pencil hard slab sitting on the October facets. All the rocks sticking through it seem to kinda hold things together in small areas, and pits showed that compression tests were negative. Shovel shearing only produced super low quality shears. But again, the whole thing is sitting on totally rotten snow, which is kinda creepy. </p>
Total mixed bag of conditions on the surface. Everything from wind slabs that ski edges wouldn't leave a mark on, to recycled pow, to a graupel mix to a wind crust. Yikes.