Quick report
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Rapid Warming, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>I checked out the recent natural avalanche in Horse Creek. I was able to get on the bed surface and confirm that this avalanche ripped to the ground taking out the entire season's snowpack. Poor snowpack structure was observed on a west aspect at 11,170'.</p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>The PWL is alive and active on polar aspects. I will continue to avoid avalanche terrain on the shady side of the compass. I investigated west facing slopes today to see if this is a viable strategy to avoid the PWL problem, but I found poor snowpack structure at 11,170' with multiple weak layers of concern. ECTP 22 on the 2/11 weak layer down 72 cm. I went for a second test to duplicate this result and got ECTPV (failed on isolation) on the depth hoar near the bottom of the pack. A third extended column test also resulted in ECTPV on the depth hoar. Recent stability tests from W-N-E have been getting results on the deeply buried facets/depth hoar at the bottom of the pack. The recent avalanche in Horse Creek also took out the entire season's snow pack. It's a bad set up, and we have to continue to excercise patience with our current PWL problem. </p> <p> </p> <p>Some west facing slopes are melted out and have a very shallow snowpack. There is not an avalanche problem on these slopes. But if you get on a west face with a real snowpack, mulitple weak layers of facets exist beneath a slab. The only way to know is to probe for depth, and dig down to find the weak layers. </p> <p> </p>
Traveled across a variety of aspects. Cold dry powder is still found on northerlies. Low angle and sheltered northerlies offer the best turning conditions. South, southwest, and west had a crust in the morning and were wet in the afternoon. They will be crusted over tomorrow morning.