Flagpole Peak

Today we toured on the NE side of flagopole peak. Temperature was near 24° when we left the car at 6:15am. We ascended to the looker's left of the main gully trying to avoid any convexities and rollovers. We noted about 30" of new snow towards the bottom of the peak. As we ascended and popped out of the trees at 7200ft we could feel spots with only 8-12" of new snow above the pre-storm surface on more easterrnly aspects. Snow was much deeper on lee aspects indicating wind loading. As we continued to ascend we saw some soft slab formation and informal tests occasionally showed a 2-4" soft slab sliding off the top as soon as the column was isolated. There were limited spots where there was cracking and larger 4-6ft long chunks sliding back into the skin track. We only noted one spot with a shooting ~8ft crack. Above 8000ft the wind was gusting strongly upslope with snow fall rates around 1" an hour. We did not see any recent crowns, however visibility was limited given the low clouds.

Quick report