Snowpack

Observation: Moab

Reed KennardMoab
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Quick report

Red Flags
Cracking, Poor Snowpack Structure
Red Flags Comment
<p>Overall the snow pack appears to have set up into solid spring conditions. We noticed some small loose storm sluffs from the last storm, but nothing major. On the boot up the northwest face of laurel I found a few pockets of sugary faceted snow when I punched throught the overlying spring crust, but nothing reactive. On our ski down we had some localized cracking in shallow windslabs, but nothing willing to propagate or move very far. We just didn't get a lot of snow out of this last storm.</p>

Northwest Face of Laurel

Pre Laurel Peak

Snowpack

Instability Comment
<p>We found some shallow wind slabs our tour today, but nothing appeared to be that willing to move. </p>

We found the full range of winter conditions today on our tour into Horse Creek today.  Most exposed areas we encountered had been affected by the strong winds during the last storm.  We did encounter some small pockets of soft dry snow in extremely sheltered areas, but they were few and far between.  Our descent down the dark side had some soft damp snow that skied fairly well.  From the bottom of the Dark side we headed up Horse Creek and towards the northwest face of Laurel Peak.  We skinned as far as we could and then booted up till the snow started to thin out.  We found a mix of stubborn shallow  wind slabs and firm spring conditions.  We were able to ski all the way out of Horse Creek but we did have to dodge some exposed grassy sections