Quick report
We mainly stuck to lower-angle terrain, although traveled onto a few smaller steep slopes, with minimal instabilities noted. Most activity appeared to be from when the storm was winding down yesterday, although we still didn't feel comfortable heading out into larger terrain today. Great riding conditions up high. Lower elevations and thin areas are starting to fill in, although more snow would still be great. Creek bridges are mainly present and holes are starting to get covered. Skis were still occasionally scratching the pavement on the road.
No signs of instability or new avalanches today. Avalanches from yesterday.Weather
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- light
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
Temperatures were in the upper 20's/low 30's. Very light (S-1) snowfall began at 10am and continued for the day. Calm to very light winds at upper elevations.
Snowpack
Dry, low-density snow was present above the 1cm-thick 1/8 crust, which was about 50cm (1.5ft) down. Layers were right-side up and generally well bonded.
A few layers of note: 1/16 interface, about a foot down. Tilt tests showed the failure plane, but other pit tests showed minimal failure concerns in this location. There was a thin layer of rounding facets about 6" beneath the 1/8 crust. I got hard, resistant planar compression test results on the layer. Above the 12/30 crust, which was1 meter deep, I found 1-2mm rounding facets. A deep tap test yielded a score of 28.
Avalanche
One debris pile was noted at about 5000ft in north-facing terrain. The debris was partially covered with new snow, so we suspect it occurred 1/17. The slide was probably D1.5-D2. We also suspect it was a slab avalanche, but bad visibility limited our ability to find a crown. A few very small loose and soft slab avalanches were visible on the road cuts 3000-4200'.