Red Mountain

As a party of 4, we ascended on a N-NW aspect from meadow view road. Coverage was questionable and we broke through into the bushes frequently while skinning. At about 8000’ we transitioned to the bench and the aspect was more N-NE, slightly steeper maybe 20-25 degrees (didn’t measure). At this point we started hearing whumphing on the skin track. Half a dozen times we felt significant collapse with the whumphs, you could feel the snowpack drop beneath you and small cracks occurred but did not propagate. The collapse felt isolated to where we were standing. We decided to not ascend to the steeper headwall due this behavior. The reactivity was consistent as we ascended another 1000’ feet before switching over in a wind scoured area with low coverage. On the way down we continue to feel and observe isolated collapses until we got below 8000’ and back on the N-NW aspect where the snow was no longer reactive and we got some great powder turns in between dodging bushes.

Quick report