Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Rapid Warming
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>As I climbed towards the Birthday Chutes ridge the wind was cranking fairly hard, and the surprising amount of snow that fell yesterday and didn't set up via warm temps was rocketing over the ridge (I tried a couple of times to get pics during the gusts, but my timing kept being off). I got a little cracking on the leeward side of the bulging ridge, and am pretty certain that center-punching the notorious Bday chutes would have resulted in some excitement. Since that zone is a bit committing to ski cut, I just opted to imagine it ripping and skied off to the NW to lower angle and more wind-sheltered terrain. </p> <p> </p> <p>However, even that wasn't a gimme: the west facing slopes had some new snow on top of the melt/freeze crust from a few days ago, and I skied that cautiously/off fall line on the steeper rolls because it seemed like that might be a nice sliding surface (tho I didn't stop to dig a little to ascertain the crust/new snow bond; I just veered over into "better" terrain). </p> <p> </p> <p>The warm temps and somewhat limited snow available for transport means that eventually all the snow that will blow over the ridge will have done so, and time will make that north facing wind loaded stuff lock up, but given the forecast of continued winds til midnight I'd probably avoid the high/exposed north on Tuesday as well. </p> <p>It was quite warm at the 7200' trailhead early morn and the snow felt appropriately moist. It turned to powder at ~8k (rising over the course of the day) and there wasn't any rain, but I still avoided dropping into White Pine Creek (assuming that's what it's called) early on my exit to avoid any dumb little wet slides into the drainage. </p>
damp snow to about 8000 (and moving upward), dense powder above that.