Quick report
- Aspect
- North
- Elevation
- 2987 m
- Slope Angle
- 30°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>No red flags that I could see. New snow does not weight enough to overload any faceted layers. I looked for pockets of wind slab that formed at the beginning of the storm but could not find any on the west side of the canyon. </p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>I'm still suspicious that there may be other lingering wind slabs on faceted snow hiding beneath the fooffy powder on the surface. The wind blew hard as the storm approached and we've had some both human triggered and explosive triggered slabs involving wind slabs on persistent weak layers. I looked for them quite a bit where I was but could not find any of the Wiley wind slabs. Todd said he found some on the west side of the canyon on Red Baldy and Birthday Chutes. So it's kind of hit and miss with the pre-frontal wind. I'm guessing that these areas are confined mostly to the upper elevation, shady aspects.</p> <p>Lots of spatial variability with the pre-existing snowpack as is usually the case when it doesn't snow in awhile. The thinner spots are almost all faceted snow where you are sinking to the rocks. In places deeper than about 50 cm there is a stout midpack slab. In thicker areas, the basal depth hoar has gained a lot of strength and is often moist. </p> <p>The winds were very calm today so with so much very low density powder to blow around, it won't take much wind to create wind slabs in a hurry. The wind is forecast to pick up later on Monday and blow stronger on Monday night and Tuesday with another weak impulse. So watch for building wind slabs later in the day on Monday and especially on Tuesday. </p>
Wow, today was one of those days.... Goldilocks powder on a supportable base. About 4 inches at the trailhead with 8 or more inches up high. Very light, stellar clumps falling all day.