Quick report
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Wind Loading, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Recent avalanches, wind loading and a poor snowpack structure were the main red flags out there today. An aditional red flag for me in this terrain was the thiner and likely weaker snowpack outside the cottonwoods. </p>
ECTP25 Q2 Resistant Planar at 8181ft on a North aspect. This failed 44cm down on the rain crust from the end of January.
Pic 1. Rain Crust 45cm down from the top of the pack.
Pic 2. Propagation within the rain crust
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Not tons of wind slabs in my travels today but I did see a few small 10cm deep windslabs on North aspects at 8k. </p> <p>Seamed like a fairly widespread rain crust around 35-50cm down in the lower elevation terrain I was in today which was the layer that concerned me the most. Facets on the ground are 1-1.5mm and seam to be rounding and getting stronger in this location. </p>
First walk up Mt. Aire this season, I found snow heights around 120cm on the North facing ridge once you hit the pines at around 7600ft, HS went up to 150cm at 8200ft. About 15cm of F hardness on top of 1F snow that went down to the crust combo that was 45cm down from the top of the pack.