Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Watch for wind loading </p>
Went north to see if we could write off the PWL. It is dormant and essentially done in the Logan zone. We suspected it was done in the Ogden area mountains.
The line between SLC and Ogden zones is Farmington Canyon, but the snowpack is deep and strong in this area. The shallowest snow we found was 1.5 meters deep. Then we went to a ridgeline where we thought the snow would be especially shallow and it was 2.35 meters deep. Then, we rode through multiple gullies under big avalanche paths with no concerns.
What we ended up focusing on was the late Jan layer which was the snow surface just before a week of snowfall that started on Feb 1st. This layer is a little soft and a little faceted but would not break in my ECT's.
We also looked for facets that formed prior to last night's 4 inches of snow. I couldn't find any and the new snow was generally well bonded to the old snow. The weakest layer was within last nights new snow.
Photo 1 - a poor photo, but I could pull in the new snow and it would break within itself but not on the ol snow surface. Photo 2 - an older wind slab triggered by riders maybe last weekend. In small terrain, they aren't as dangerous as they are in big terrain. Photo 3 - 235 cm of snow
Then we triggered two fresh slabs of wind drifted snow over 200' wide very easily. Photos below
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Today this was the main problem. I suspect today's wind slabs will be healing, but more will form with Thursday's new snow and any amount of wind.</p>
Great soft powder. SE aspects had a soft ice crust under the new snow. NE aspects were all soft snow.