WMR Sidecountry

FAC staff had a team meeting out of WMR today. We were pleasantly surprised to find better than expected sliding conditions in the backcountry near the resort. 

Our takeaways:

• Crusts at the new/old snow interface are highly variable. We observed everything from a 1-inch-thick, stout crust to paper-thin, brittle, or nearly non-existent crusts—sometimes all on the same slope and in very close proximity.
• Weak snow exists both just above the crust (near-surface facets and spotty upright surface hoar) and more widely below it.
• The new snow was only beginning to cohere into a thin, soft slab. It showed little ability to hold together or propagate a long-running crack, was generally poorly bonded to the new/old interface, and was easy to sluff off in steep terrain.
• Snowpit observations and column tests suggest that in these locations, the previously weak snow near the Christmas Crust is healing and the slab/weak layer combination is unlikely to produce a large avalanche failing at the Christmas Crust. Our instability concerns were focused on the new/old interface and the weak snow in close proximity (both above and below). 

We intentionally triggered one small soft slab avalanche on a steep north-facing run.

We dug two pits. Both at roughly 6300 feet, and on opposing aspects (SE and a N).

• SE facing pit had results of PST 90/100 END down 73 cm above the Christmas Crust.  PST 90/100END  down 63 cm., above the Jan. 2 crust.  And most remarkably, PST 20/100 ARR  down 20 cm., below the most recent crust
• N facing pits had results of ECTX.  4 inches of new snow above a 1 cm thick crust, with 2-3 mm Surface hoar above the crust and 1 mm facets below.