Western Wallowas

Quick report

Cracking

specific

Around 3:00 PM we observed shooting cracks and were able to trigger avalanches on small, steep, leeward facing, wind loaded terrain features. The snow started falling around 11:30 and fell continueously at the rate of 2-3 cm’s per hour. I observed 4” of new snow on my snowmobile by the end of the day and the snow was still coming down hard. Winds were mostly moderate out of the southwest the entire day. We continue to travel on and around terrain less than 30 degrees. We felt uneasy about the possibility of triggering wind slab avalanches on steep terrain affected by recent wind loading. We were also concerned about the persistent weak layers near the ground that are getting buried and stressed by this new load of snow. By the end of the day, stability on steep and wind loaded terrain was poor.

Avalanche

We were able to generate shooting cracks and trigger soft slab avalanches on small, wind loaded, WNW facing test slopes located at or near 7000’ . We performed these slope tests Wednesday afternoon at the end of a snowy and windy day.