Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
- Collapsing
- isolated
We toured out to False Peak via Little O'Malley gully. Skinning across the SW face of the Little O'Malley-False ridge, we observed an isolated shooting crack on a wind-loaded pocket at around 3400 ft that seemed to have come from the party ahead of us setting the skintrack. We crossed the slope one at a time slightly lower and did not experience any additional cracking. When we reached the S-facing side of the False Peak bowl, we felt some settling/whumphing on another stiff, wind-loaded pocket around 3600 ft and decided not to continue to the ridge. Overall, the snow quality from the ridge down to 3200 ft was wind-affected and variable--alternating between a stiff, grabby crust; a softer breakable windcrust, and shallow unaffected powder on top of ample rocks. Once we got down to around 3200 feet, the snow was softer and more predictable.