Avalanche: Cardiac Ridge

Mark was out of town so we had to go to Cardiac Ridge oursleves on Friday.  Snow on the terrain ridden was about knee deep plus, inverted but nicely supportive for snowboards. Noteworthy was that there was a significant slide that occurred mid storm last week covering much of the width of cardiac ridge. There was enough new snow over the debris that the debris still rode well.  The slide seemed like it went slow and wide with debris height being only 1-1.5 feet above the rest of the snowpack at the lower portions.  All of the terrain in he photo slid other than the apron we rode and beneath the few moraines with scrubby trees in the area that aren't pictured. The terrain that did not slide has about 12-15" of dense nice powder over maybe 6" of lighter density-probably faceted snow.  It rode very well and no rocks were hit on the main slope. Some of this lower layer found up high and lower down was comprised of fine grained facets.

Hopefully the denser snow in the slide paths won't facet as thoroughly as it could have in the coming high pressure. Lower terrain was lively with lots rocks. Road down to BCC was mostly walk out at day's end and surely is all walking now.