Quick report
- Aspect
- Northwest
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 2865 m
- Slope Angle
- 25°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Chose to stay out of the wind, so did not deal with wind slabs, but could still see some drifting along upper ridgelines. Otherwise, things were pretty tame, although was surprised by the weakness of the snowpack, which is why I marked structure, see below.</p>
Was just up for a quick lap with the dog and had not planned on digging, but usually can't resist a look at the snow. Pretty thin and weak on N facing at 9,400' near the top of Raymond Glade. Total depth was 1 meter, with the bottom 50 cm still very faceted, and the January facets still very weak. Biggest surprise to me was not so much the poor structure, but the energy left in the tired snowpack; full propagation and a Q1 shear (50 cm down, ECTP 22, Q1). So OK strength, poor structure (4 out of 5 lemons, although the "slab" above the weak layer was barely a full hardness step greater, so 3 out of 5 could be argued), and energy.
No doubt this is an outlier (last place I looked, White Pine, was the complete opposite, super strong), but likely a similar structure as the Alexander Basin slide. My terrain was mellow, so wasn't an issue, but would have been a different game if I had the same results at the top of a steep line with some consequences.
Snowpack
About 4 inches of soft dense snow above maybe 7,500 in Porter, still good skiing on northerly facing slopes out of the wind. As mentioned above, wet activity was kept at bay by the cloud cover, at least as of noon.