Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Cracking, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>A lot of wind loading onto south slopes, wind was getting down into the mid elevations. Tracks in south monitor were mostly filled in by time I reclimbed the bowl with a quick halfalap at the base. Yesterdays skin track in the willows (assumption) was mostly filled in this morning (photo below).</p> <p>Some localized cracking on most aspects in recent wind deposited snow.</p> <p>Snow structure in the willows was similar to what I saw in USA yesterday and today, that is thin and faceted with crusts here and there. Will's hill also was thin and faceted, this may not be the safe heaven that some assume it is with additional snow.</p> <p>Snow structure on the skiers left side of south monitor was completely different than what I saw yesterday on the skiers right side (facets below wind slabs). Skiers left side was thin and rotted with some areas of breakable crust. I had to side slip to get into the bowl and then the snow pack varied from thin and rotted to the ground to crusts over rotted facets to the ground. HS at the base of the bowl is 14" in the wind sheltred flats.</p> <p>My big takaway from the last two days is that facets exist on all aspects. Perhaps we are setting things up for a big slide cycle to clean out some of the big sidepaths......</p>
No snow profiles today, no real changes to be seen except drifting on the south side of the PC ridge.
Photo: Wind drifting in the willows/wills Hill area. Yesterdays(?) skin track.
Photos (2) thin cover is South Monitor. Track photo is a 50th birthday present for an unnamed observer, congrats brother!
Note: this is not the typical skin track location. I included it as an example of current travel conditions outside of wind loaded areas only.
Moderate danger is example of worst case scenario in this area. I would assume that the alpine is much more wind affected.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Wind slabs in isolated areas, moderate hazard. In south monitor the hazard is on the more north facing areas.</p> <p>The primary hazard is low snow and obstacles. Breaking trail up the skiers left side of south monitor was not an issue today (photo below).</p>
Mixed bag. Not much of a change from yesterday in the same areas. One exception was wind blowing hard and moving snow from both monitors to the south side with much new scouring and drifting from yesterday.