Quick report
- Aspect
- Northeast
- Red Flags
- Cracking, Collapsing
- Elevation
- 3200 m
- Slope Angle
- 22°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Observed many localized collapses today, mostly while below treeline in meadows on low-angle northerly slopes. Shooting cracks up to around 20' were present in a few of these collapses.</p>
My guess is this is exactly where you can trigger an avalanche right now. Steep, northerly slope that has a wind slab sitting on top of various weak layers. I noted some debris and a fuzzy crown line in this terrain, and these may be from the late December storm.
Many southerly slopes in the alpine are complete devoid of snow. Avalanche danger changes dramatically with changes in aspect.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>There is obviously a poor snowpack structure throughout the entire range. Facets on one or two crusts seem to be the most problematic. Interestingly, I did note some large sized (1-2 mm) facets near the top of the snowpack- which is a little weird... but so is 2021, C'EST LA VIE! These could be some near-surface facets, but it was strange to see such large grains near the top of the snowpack. This area is very wind-affected, and contained some denser wind-deposited layers overlying these problematic weak layers. Snowpack temps were fairly warm- sort of surprising, but the steep temperature gradient in the top 10-20 cm suggests that we may be forming some near-surface facets during this January drought. </p> <p>Two compression tests yielded moderate results with sudden-collapse fracture character on facets above the basal crust. </p> <p>There isn't much of a slab across the range, except where wind has deposited dense snow. I didn't observe snow transport at ridgetop, however, what little snow that was available for transport seemed to fill-in the skin track as well as my snowpit. Snow depth was quite variable, with some slopes in the alpine completely stripped bare of snow (NW aspect off of South Mtn.)</p>
Snow depth ranged from about 30 cm to 80 cm. In the trees on northerly aspects, this snow was fairly supportive and almost sort of creamy. Imagine making cream cheese out of facets. It was sort of like that....
Above treeline, snow was pretty wind-hammered and displayed a range of textures from punchy-shallow-facets to bullet-hard wind slabs, and some soul-searching sastrugi inbetween.