Quick report
- Aspect
- North
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 2957 m
- Slope Angle
- 25°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Biggest red flag was the wind. It was loading or crossloading slopes along the PC Ridgeline, including Dutch Draw and the Monitors. Newly formed drifts did not seem overly sensitive and we only observed very limited activity.</p> <p>In terms of snow structure, the basal facets are rounding and are not quite as loose as they were a month ago. The larger issue now seems to be the multiple interfaces between storms. On both a west and north aspect, I noted some rounding facets about 30 cms deep.</p>
Wind affected snow below
Small overloaded cornice failure.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Wind drifted snow tends to create connected slabs and rapidly loads lee slopes, which is a recipe for avalanches. New snow tomorrow may arrive with strong winds further adding to the problem.</p> <p>Basal facets are only burred along the PC Ridgeline about 1m deep, which although unlikely today, is still within the range that could be triggered by a person, particularly in a thin rocky area. The good news is that these appear to be gaining strength. As noted above, there were also multiple storm interfaces that could be problematic. </p>
On a SE aspect, I noted a zipper crust probably from earlier in the week. In the wind, snow was either scoured and/or wind packed. Out of the wind and on other aspects, snow was pretty good settled powder.