Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
Rough travel exists below 5500 ft in this part of the zone. Above this, I found 4-8 inches of recent snow over the Early February crust. Along the upper ridgeline, I found plenty of evidence of the recent strong NW wind event that occurred Thursday night.
Weather
- Air Temp
- High 20's
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- light
- Rain Elevation
- 4000 ft
- Recent Snowfall
- Trace
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
Wind speeds relaxed into the light range by the time I started my tour. Overall, it stayed cloudy through the morning with some intermittent snow showers.
Snowpack
I encountered challenging travel conditions below 5500 ft. Surfaces are rough and the skinning was slick on steeper pitches. Above this, I started encountering more recent snow (4-8 in) and easier travel. However, west aspects have a new sun crust, which made breakable skinning and riding on that side of the ridge. East aspects held about 20 cm of colder, softer snow above the early Feb crust.
Along Pea Gravel below 6500 ft, I found wind slabs to be shallow, stubborn, and bonding better than anticipated. I didn't get above this elevation, but I suspect larger and potentially more sensitive slabs in the alpine. With shovel tilt tests I found this early February interface sliding out easily producing planar results on slightly weaker snow just above the crust. Outside of specific wind-loaded pockets, the recent snow is still fairly low-density and lacks slab-like characteristics.