Quick report
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Wind Loading, Cracking, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>The main probles are lingering wind slabs, which are mostly shallow, and wet sluffs of the new snow as it heated up in the sun. Both problems are manageable and avalanches are fairly small.</p>
Top photo: wind effects in Cardiac Bowl
Second photo: wind effects in Mineral Fork in the foreground with the big peaks of Dromedary and Twins in the background.
Third photo: many small, wet sluffs triggered by skiers and boarders on south facing Flagstaff as the new snow heated up in the sun
Fourth photo: natural wet sluffs from the rocks in Cardiff Bowl
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>There are widespread areas of wind affected snow at upper elevation wind exposed terrain from a strong north wind at the end of the weekend storm. Most of these slabs are very 'manageable" meaning that they are easy to recognize and avoid. Even when you do trigger one, they are mostly shallow--less than a foot deep. I saw perhaps a half dozen natural slabs that happened during the storm and perhaps a dozen shallow soft slabs triggered by skiers and boarders in the last day and a half. As near as I can tell, no one was caught in any of these and most were 6 inches deep and not very wide.</p> <p>Lots of slopes have many tracks in the Cardiff drainage and the South Face of Superior had wall-to-wall tracks. </p> <p>Most of these wind slabs should settle out fairly quickly. </p> <p>I saw dozens of shallow wet sluffs and slabs as the new snow heated up in the strong sun today. Most of the natural avalanches came off of rocks that heat up in the sun and there were a number of skier triggered wet sluffs in steep terrain. These were mostly small and very manageable. Again, the South Face of Superior was tracked out wall to wall with many small sluffs triggered as well.</p> <p>It appears that warming will be gradual over the next few days so these should settle out fairly quickly before the heating becomes a larger problem.</p>
Six inches of new snow on Saturday and Sunday morning helped improve riding conditions quite a bit. Unfortunately, the north wind blew fairly hard at the end of the storm and there is quite a bit of wind damage in the upper elevation alpine terrain. But you can still find some sheltered areas with good riding. All the sun exposed slopes are sun crusted.