Quick report
- Aspect
- North
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Wind Loading, Cracking, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 2804 m
- Slope Angle
- 32°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>The snowpack has been fairly well behaved for the past week or so but the stiff, recent winds changed everything. There are widespread wind slabs approaching 10,000' and higher consisting of hard slabs and lots of punchy, soft slabs resting on the old low density snow surface. In the shallow snowpack areas, these wind slabs rest on faceted snow. Many of them crack but they were not very sensitive except when resting on weak, faceted snow on steep slopes. I stayed on gentle slope angles all day.</p>
Here is a 2 minute video of my snowpit profile at 9,000' north facing slope in White Pine.
Extensive wind damage above 10,000'.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>No lack of fresh wind slabs in above tree line alpine terrain, mostly above 10,000'. These are both hard and soft. Most sit on top of the low density new snow from before the wind so they are not cracking very much or collapsing. I didn't get on any steep slopes to test them, though. Occasionally, I could find some places where the wind slabs sat on weak, shallow, faceted snow and they were much more touchy. I suspect this was the situation for the human triggered avalanches yesterday.</p> <p>In the shallow snowpack areas, the added load of wind deposited snow and the expected new snow over the next several days will undoubtedly overload various layers of weak, faceted snow. It's going to be almost impossible to know where the danger areas are located because the snowpack is extremely spatially variable. In general, the areas outside of the Cottonwood Canyons are weaker and the steep, thin, rocky areas as well. Plus, there are the repeater slide paths. It's just going to be a crap shoot.</p>
I went into White Pine to look at a couple reported human triggered avalanches from yesterday including one that reportedly caught 3 people as they were skinning up. Despite wandering all over the White Pine drainage, I did not find either one. I suspect that the strong wind filled in the evidence after they were triggered.
Extensive wind damage approaching 10,000' and higher from winds probably yesterday. Widespread, lurch-and-jerk wind slabs and hard slabs on all aspects resting on the light snow from before the wind. Down out of the wind, the surface snow remains light and powdery with a supportable base.