Quick report
- Cracking
- specific
- Collapsing
- isolated
We observed cracking underfoot as we moved up the gully on skins. After transitioning to crampons and beginning to ascend we found lots of whoomphing in the gully above the split. Gully was a hard to read combination of very firm snow in places, multiple breakable crust layers in others, and deep (waist) unconsolidated snow with no body to it down to the older ice crust. We moved to the smaller gully skiers left of 4 hoping for better snow as it's more protected. This was not the case. We found similar conditions there. Just below tree line we dug a small pit to check out the layering setup. As we isolated a column with the saw, it released in 3 locations at the same time. Once at about 10cm deep, again 15 cm below that and again 15 cm lower to 40cm deep. The first slab was consolidated but fairly soft, lightweight and broke easily, this was sitting directly on the second slab but now well bonded. The second slab was much firmer and heavier and stayed mostly intact after throwing it at a tree and was sitting on about 15cm of faceted snow. The layer below this appeared to be the 12/19 rain crust.
Avalanche
Natural avalanche crown and still soft debris at bottom of the fingers/ gully 3 alternate entry where it hooks lookers right by the large rock. Photo included.