Snowpack

Stair Step

Claire BicknellHatcher Pass
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Quick report

Cracking
isolated

Went up to stair step and beyond for some fun post storm skiing! For nearly the entire tour we were treated with 10''-15'' of light and fresh pow. Surprisingly our group spotted no signs of natural avalanches after the storm while getting eyes on ample terrain in good light. Frequent pole probes often found a soft layer of facets under a stout slab however in certain locations on southerly aspects underneath the new snow was simply wind board. The only sign of wind slab was right under ridge top on a southerly aspect at 4200' with small shooting cracks. A snowpit on an alpine NE aspect showed poor structure and a propagating result on basal facets. Another pit on a southerly aspect had a slight density change within the slab and ECTP 28. Cracking was increadibly isolated only found ~10' from SW ridgetops

Weather

Cloud Cover
broken
Wind Loading
light
Snow Avail For Transport
moderate amounts

Snowpack

We first investigated the snowpack at 3400' on a NE aspect. What we found was a snow height of 95cm with 40cm of pencil hard slab overlying 20cm of fist hard basal facets. Stability tests resulted in an ECTP 30 70cm↓ on these facets. Investigating the SW aspect at 3800' the majority of the 80cm of snow underneath the fresh was composed of stout pencil hard windslab. However there was a small 10cm layer of small 4F facets. On this layer we observed ECTP 28 35↓.