Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
-Walked trail in approach shoes to about 4700'. -Lots of surface hoar growth below 7000', with the best crop located between 5000-6500'. Some very large feathers reaching 10 mm or more. -Terrible (but fast) skiing made for excellent climbing conditions. The snowpack was locked down under a stout surface crust that was often supportable in boots up to 8000' elevation. -Surface crust became breakable above 8000' and thinned with elevation, I think it was still there at 10,000', but hard to tell with the rime. -Above 8000' we traveled on giant piles of old avalanche debris to 8700'. This was firmly packed snow, and we could not find any persistent weak layers in the upper 1.5 m of the snowpack. -Above 8700, the terrain steepened and the snowpack grew very thin due to previous sluffing and wind scouring. Everything was plastered with rime. The snowpack underneath was basically a stack of old crusts with some facets in between. -No additional avalanche activity in the Sprague Ck basin since my initial visit on Jan. 15th. -Many wet loose avalanches (D1-D2) in the Lake Ellen Wilson basin from the mega warm up early last week. I could not find any recent slab avalanches. -There were some very large (D3...D4 maybe?) avalanches that I suspect ran during the major atmospheric river event in December. One slide ran several thousand feet off Mt. Jackson and put substantial amounts of debris onto the ice of Lake Ellen Wilson. One shooting crack that we triggered (6-8" deep, 15' long) in a steep pile of old sluff debris at 8700'. No other signs of instability.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Wind Loading
- none
- Recent Snowfall
- 0
- Snow Avail For Transport
- none
Stratus deck moved in and out and varied in elevation over the weekend. Calm or light NE winds with no wind loading. No precipitation. Temperatures remained sub-freezing.