Quick report
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>This zone did not receive nearly as much snowfall in the past week as the Tony Grove area, but there is great coverage and generally deep snow except in the upper starting zones. Today, we dug two pits at about 8200' (247 cm deep) and 8900' (125 cm deep). We got ECTNs in both, meaning we could not get any propagation across the isolated slab. There was definitely weak snow present, but for the most part, it is buried very deeply and unreactive to tests. The snow in the shallower pit up high was much more suspect with obvious facets almost falling out of the pit wall. These facets are from late January and are well-developed (2-4mm). They are capped by a heat crust from early February that appears to be what is providing any structural support to ride on. We observed no collapsing or cracking, and no active wind loading. The only sign of instability we observed was a handful of loose wet avalanches on S-facing slopes at low elevation, mainly below rock bands.</p>
1. Deep pit at 8200'.
2. Shallower pit at 8900'.
3. Settlement
4. Rime on trees.
5. View of Logan Peak and good coverage.
6. Loose wet avalanches in the quarry.
7. Snow pit showing obvious weak faceted snow from late Janaury under a dirty heat crust from warming during early February that is holding this shallow upper snowpack together.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>There are weak layers (facets) and I still think it is possible for someone to trigger an avalanche in areas where the snow is shallow or the slab is thin. </p> <p>Observed loose wet activity on S-facing slopes at mid and low elevations. </p>
Hero riding and sliding conditions today with 8-10" of medium-density snow sitting atop a few feet of right-side-up snow from the past week. We observed small surface hoar in northerly facing terrain. This created paper thin surface hoar sluffs when you traveled downhill.