Quick report
It was easy to trigger generally small wet loose avalanches today. The few inches of snow over a slightly firmer crust ran to near the bottom of each test slope. While they were small, they were heavy and strong for their size.
Down low, we didn't find enough new or old snow to pose much hazard.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 36
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Wind Loading
- none
- Rain Elevation
- 5000
- Recent Snowfall
- 10
- Snow Avail For Transport
- none
A very spring day.... Moments of sunshine when it would feel very warm and steamy. They a shower would roll in with moderate snow and make it feel much cooler. The weather flipped back and forth several times.
Snowpack
There was a trace of new snow below 5000ft, but accumulations became more notable above. There was generally about 3-4 in (10cm) wet sticky snow over the old (4/24) crust. The new snow was poorly bonded to this soft older surface.
The upper snowpack was highly variable. You may find alternating layers of weak wet snow, crusts, and ice lenses. We didn't investigate too much below the upper few feet.
Avalanche
There were several natural wet loose slides visible in the terrain. Some were in the northeast facing terrain of the Tattoosh. Others were on more southerly slopes of the Edith Creek basin. Most were small (D1s), but some were a bit larger (D1.5 or small D2s). I was easily able to trigger small wet loose slides on steeper E-facing aspects around 6000ft. They involved all of the new snow and ran easily on the underlying crust. One thing that stuck out to me was how far they ran and how much snow they entrained. You could image them growing substantially larger on longer slopes or at higher elevaitons where there's more snow over the crust.