Quick report
- Aspect
- Northeast
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Cracking
- Elevation
- 2987 m
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Isolated cracking within new snow down 3 to 5" deep; some minor sluffing noted on steepest slopes. </p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Hunkered down in more wind protected terrain but noted drifting along higher ridgelines. </p> <p>Storm plus potentially "persistent slab" - </p> <p> </p> <p>Cracking and shear tests elicited weakness 4-6" down within the new snow just above the couple-day-old wind slab/crusts. These crusts in turn sit above last week's high pressure facets and - at least where I traveled - didn't have enough of a new load to step beneath the crusts in the faceted snow - perhaps at higher locations with more wind. I do think these would have been possible in this higher more open terrain, producing larger (still size 1.5) avalanches; and potentially triggered from a distance. </p>
A few inches of new on soft settled powder on northerlies...with dust on crust for the off aspects. Open and exposed terrain had the few inches of new over a 2" wind crust.