Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
We traveled exclusively below treeline. The new snow lacked much cohesion, and in steep terrain, was typically disturbed by some amount of overnight sluffing, slumping, or slabbing. By the time we got there around 9:30 a.m., the snowpack was quiet underfoot and we skied a dozen short, steep pitches with minimal signs of instability. The underlying snowpack lacks much of a midpack. It felt as if you found a steep slope where the new snow was undisturbed, with just the right ingredients of very weak facets underneath, you could trigger a slab in the new snow here, or if wind drifting increases tomorrow. We chose to avoid the bigger, higher-elevation terrain, where slabs might be more cohesive and entrainment potential more serious.
One terrain feature produced shooting cracks up to 10'. Otherwise no signs of instability except for activity that ran overnight.Weather
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- none
- Rain Elevation
- N/A
- Recent Snowfall
- 32 to 42
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
Measured 13" at 9000' and 16" at 10,000'. About an inch of snow fell during the day.
Snowpack
Ski pen is up to 60 cm: half very low-density new snow, half low-density facets above the Christmas Crust.
Avalanche
- Size
- D2
- Type
- SS
- Count
- 5
- Aspect
- E
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 11100 ft
There was a cycle of small (D1) storm slabs and sluffs that ran during the heavier precip rates last night on north to east terrain where we traveled. One in Climax Chutes grew to D2 in size, due to significant entrainment in larger terrain.