Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Cracking, Collapsing, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Cracking and collapsing continue to reveal the underlying poor snowpack structure. Today we also experienced some minor cracking in fresh wind drifts formed by the strong westerly winds.</p>
Toured up Knob Mountain and into Cow Fork today at elevations ranging from 7,000 to 10,100 feet on slopes of all aspects. The good news is that the new high density snow skied well and added some much needed body to the snowpack. Despite the meager snow totals things seemed quite a bit more filled in than a week ago. The bad news is that our snowpack is still very shallow and weak. You still punch right through to the ground as soon as you take off your skis. This storm was not enough to tip the balance and cause natural avalanches at least in places we traveled but did create some fresh and sensitive wind drifts. The main avalanche problem remains persistent slabs failing on the weak faceted snow at the base of the snowpack and this doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>We didn't get lots of snow but the strong winds clearly moved it around. Fresh pillowy wind drifts were visible on some of the steeper east facing slopes in the Cow Fork. No natural avalanche activity was noted but I'd be worried about these fresh wind slabs being easier to trigger and potentially step down particularly on high elevation east facing slopes right below ridgelines.</p>
In the Cedar Creek area there was 3-4 inches of new snow above 9,000 feet. The new snow was dense and included some graupel.