Quick report
Natural D2 R3 slide in Silver Lining. No other naturals seen in the KAZ. Some loose sluffs ran while skiing Pipeline and Icy Gash but were manageable. One running sluff in Pipeline caught me off guard but it was mostly just due to poor terrain management/trying to ski top-to-bottom/being a bit of a young aggressive male (YAM). Main problem was just sloughs running with the new storm snow underneath a thin zipper crust. On S aspects there were loose wets entraining snow easily during the heat of the day.
Snowpack
A day of elevation and aspects... Approaching via Kendall Knob the snow near pass level was cold and sounded and felt faceted. Very slippy on the skintrack and some 'loud pow'. Once we broke above 4k' or so, however, a widespread breakable crust (likely from freezing rain and warm temps) began. The crust was most stout in exposed solar aspects, but it was pretty much everywhere. Northern aspects in the KAZ had a very thin 'zipper' crust. See photo. Even with this crust, skiing was enjoyable. The crust was consistent and for the most part turns were on the dry storm snow beneath the crust. On solar south aspects there was lots of loose wet activity throughout the day. For the most part we stayed on northern aspects, but when ascending south slopes it was 'manky',
Avalanche
- Size
- D2 R3
- Aspect
- N
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 4900 ft
Slide went naturally in the last few days, likely due to the warming associated with the return of westerly flow. Crown was maybe 6 inches deep but ran full width of the path. R3 because it did not run all the way to valley bottom.