Quick report
- Cracking
- specific
- Collapsing
- specific
The goal of our tour was to assess sensitivity of recent slabs from strong SE winds with extreme gusts up to 93 mph since Jan5. Upon leaving the parking lot, we found graupel on the surface that we observed throughout our tour. 3" of snow had fallen since the drive from town to the pass. Visibility was challenging but better than expected, so we only observed a few new natural avalanches. We found a thin, hard to detect rain crust up to approximately 3000' that formed during yesterdays unusually warm storm. As we ascended higher, we found thicker and more cohesive wind slabs sitting on top of a faceted weak layer. We felt 3 whumps/collapses during our tour and experienced minimal cracking. We had enough red flags and triggering avalanches for one tour, and with excellent feedback in hand, we returned to the parking lot. We did not ascend any higher than 3600' due to red flags, a heinous looking scoured south ridge, poor light, and variable conditions.
We felt 3 whumps/collapsing during our tour, 2 of which were audible and widespread. We saw a few recent natural slab avalanches on the north side of 4068', the top of the Death Gully on Marmot, and a north aspect off the upper ridge on Wimp Bowl/4068'. There were likely more naturals, but poor visibility limited our ability to see them. We observed minimal cracking from our ski tips; less than a meter. We triggered two D1 slab avalanches. See avalanche obs, crown profile, and pictures.Weather
- Air Temp
- 25*F
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Rain Elevation
- 1400
- Recent Snowfall
- 8-15cm (3-6")
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
The day started quite warm (above freezing). Rain line was noticeable within the willows on the west facing side of the Little Su around 2500'. Winds were SSE 10-15 G 16-20mph at 4500' throughout our tour. Although snotels didn't pick it up ,nor the web cams, we observed approximately 3" of new snow from early morning, which was a nice blessing and way less than we'd hoped for.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1
- Type
- HS
- Aspect
- SW
- Trigger
- AO
- Elevation
- 3557 ft
We triggered two D1 slab avalanches today while ascending Marmot from the fishhook lot. After experiencing 3 whumps during our tour, we took a more conservative route uphill, connecting pieces of terrain with little to no snow to avoid even small smooth, wind loaded features. We stopped before the upper bench before the final ridge to dig a pit. I initiated digging a pit and upon putting my shovel in the snow the second time i triggered a 100ft wide by 60 ft long slab avalanche. This avalanche was a result of strong/extreme winds that build wind slabs since Jan5. The 1F hard wind slab failed on a 5cm/2" thick layer of F hard weak sugary 1-2mm facets. Upon our descent, one of us spotted the other person while he ski cut a small test slope. The rider intentionally triggered another D1 avalanche that was small but had debris/blocks up to 2.5 ft thick, failing on facets on the firm basal ice crust. No one was caught or carried in either avalanche.