Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Moderate 'westerlies' in the mid-elevations though we stayed in protected terrain. </p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Certainly A#1 issue for tomorrow with the continued strong northwesterlies overnight. Likely on a variety of aspects and elevations through terrain channeling. Classic evidence of this was mid elevation cornice build-up above terrain traps facing <em>west...</em></p> <p>Pockety hard slabs are likely tomorrow as well as myriad soft slabs in much of the exposed terrain, even well off the ridgelines.</p> <p>Dug a few holes at 8000' or so - forgot my thermometer - but found much of the snowpack there on north facing to be near isothermal with no obvious layers holding free water or overly loose/unconsolidated. I don't mean isothermal to imply "unstructured"...as it well holds the classic structure from this year. Tests yielded variable results within 120-140cm snowpack, with some full propagation along the basal weaknesses, roughly 20cm up from the ground. </p>