Quick report
- Red Flags
- Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>The structure remains the big problem. We stayed conservative and didn't ski over 30 degrees, but my impression is that today's snowpack was largely a Moderate Danger snowpack, with weak layer adjusted to the load from the prior storm. Still, it is so reactive in testing that this next storm should make things significantly spicier.</p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Switching from calling it a persistent slab to a deep slab with the anticipated snow. It's the same dragon-- basal facets underneath a rain crust. On an E-NE facing slope around 9500', the snowpack was about 60 cm in depth, with 15 cm of facets at the ground. Compression tests yielded progressive compression within the new snow and CT14Q2 sudden planar fractures at the top of the facets. In discussion with another party, they found that this failure was propagating readily in ECTs. </p> <p>The wind with the incoming storm front really started whipping snow around. In the right places, this will mean hard little wind slabs which, if triggered, could be just what you need to start a slide that steps down to near the ground. </p>
In sheltered areas, there were 4-5" of new low density snow. East facing aspects had only dense soft snow from the prior storm overlying the rain crust. Westerly aspects had significantly more (1-2') snow on top of the crust. This made for good riding characteristics.