Quick report
- Collapsing
- isolated
Very deep riding conditions in Beaver Creek today. We triggered one large booming collapse and found propagation on weak facets below the recent storm snow in a stability test. We also observed a couple of large recent avalanches once the skies cleared. This all points towards lingering instability with the current persistent slab problem.
We hoped to get up higher to investigate wind slab building and sensitivity but were shut down by the seemingly bottomless lower elevation snow.
Triggered a large booming collapse while post-holing around a stuck snowmobile at 7400 feet on a SE aspect.Weather
- Air Temp
- 25
- Cloud Cover
- obscured
- Wind Loading
- moderate
- Recent Snowfall
- 25
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
Obscured and snowing S1-S3 throughout the morning. Snow shuts off and the clouds lift by around 1pm. We observed snow plumes along ridgelines during the drive in the morning and moderate snow transport in open meadows at lower elevations while riding.
Snowpack
Overnight and morning snowfall accumulated approximately 25cm of new snow above the 70cm of settled atmospheric river storm snow. All this rests on a base of weak facets and mixed decomposing crusts.
- The deep soft fresh snow made for challenging riding conditions (we got stuck a lot)
- We dug a quick pit at 7475 feet on a SE aspect with a total snow height of 160cm and an ECTP20@68cm test result on facets below the AR storm snow.
Avalanche
- Size
- D2
- Count
- 2
- Aspect
- SE
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 9200 ft
We spotted one large persistent slab avalanche in Little Beaver Creek drainage during the afternoon clearing that appears to have occurred today. We saw one older large persistent slab crown near McDonald Peak and observed numerous small storm slabs while driving up to Galena Summit in the morning (D1 max new snow only).