Quick report
- Cracking
- specific
We toured to Herman Saddle with the intention of assessing conditions and choosing terrain based on our observations and recent knowledge of the snowpack. Despite heavy snow early in the day, surface stability was solid as we travelled to the saddle, with little to no cohesiveness observed in storm snow, aspect-dependent wind-effect, and decent bonding of new snow to the underlying crust below ~5000'. Above 5000', the uppermost crust in the snowpack became more supportable, new snow became more cohesive, and wind direction/effect became less predictable. Around 5,800' in Secret Bowl, we observed a meaningful density change in the new storm snow, with a ~10 cm 1F/4F wind slab overlying a soft (F) storm slab. Both the interface of these layers and the interface of the storm slab on the old crust easily broke planar in multiple hand pits. Though we did not observe or trigger any significant avalanches today, we felt that the hazard increased considerably during our time out and observations guided our decision to step back from consequential terrain as our day progressed. New snow was non-cohesive and seemed to be bonding well to the underlying crust in the morning before becoming noticeably more cohesive and reactive throughout the day. I started experiencing persistent cracking while skinning up the lower section of Secret Bowl (SW and W aspects) and continued to produce cracks while both skinning and skiing on all aspects above 5,000'. In addition to cracking, both my partner and I kicked off a couple small (10' x 10'), isolated pockets at the tops of convex rollovers.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- moderate
- Recent Snowfall
- 15
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
Overcast to obscured all day with winds increasing throughout our tour, especially at ridgelines. HST varied from 0-30 cm depending on aspect/wind effect and cornices were actively building on the north sides of E-W ridges and at passes/cols. Temperature seemed consistent throughout the day.