Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
Really nice travel conditions. Lots of lines skied on multiple aspects and elevations without incident. Even with strong wind no hard slabs observed but did see some deep drifted areas even below treeline. Warming was the most influential weather component to the new snow. Overall stability was good. On 20240306 I did trigger one small cross-loaded pocket in a rocky couloir but isolated and harmless. On 20240307 Snowpack test highlighted the graupel layers between storms to be reactive. Limited cracking and no collapsing.
Weather
Intermittent sunshine and clouds. Warm temperatures.
Snowpack
Wow, what a glorious few days in the Tetons. Visiting from a weak and shallow continental snowpack I now know what I have been missing. Wednesday, was fantastic power skiing in the Jackson hole sidecountry, but sun and warm temperatures quickly warmed the new snow and hot pow observed on sunny and lower elevation slopes by mid-day. I would expect some burly crusts this morning. Thursday, was cooler on Teton pass, but the most recent storm snow was settling quickly on sunny slopes, and less so on shady slopes. No crusts observed. Digging on a northwest aspect around ~9000 feet we found a snowpack over 3 meters deep that for the most part was right-side-up trending from fist to pencil plus in hard hardness. The new snow for the last week made up around the top meter of the snowpack. Breaks in the storm created small layers that were reactive in snowpack tests but didn't show signs of instability else were. Both Compression and Extended Column Test failed on groupel layers at 21 taps that was likely the start of each snowfall event. This layers was around 50 cm's from the surface. The January layer is 4-finger in hardness below a stout pencil hard slab but over 1.5 meter from the surface.
Avalanche
3/6/2024-Triggered a small pocket in a rocky couloir. It was steep and recently cross-loaded. Skied out without issue.