Carter Lake and Crescent Lake

We rode up the Carter Lake trail to Crescent Saddle Cabin to check out the snowpack conditions in the area and get a sense of how the incoming storm was impacting avalanche conditions. The wind was the biggest factor in this area, with tons of snow being transported onto leeward slopes and wind averaging 20-30 mph with gusts of 50+ mph. We were nearly blown off our sleds riding across Crescent Lake. As we were riding to the cabin, we saw a large natural avalanche running out onto Crescent Lake from a start zone on the NW aspect of Saddle Horn Mountain (Peak 5030' on USGS topo). We stuck to the flats in the valley bottom and checked out the snowpack at 1500' on a NW aspect. We found a weak layer of facets around a melt freeze crust buried about 1.5', which failed in our stability test. This is very similar to the snowpack structure throughout the forecast area, and natural or human-triggered avalanches on this layer during this very powerful storm are very likely.

We found poor snowpack structure with facets above and below a crust buried about 1.5' deep. In our statbity test this layer failed and propagated across the column (ETCP 11). This is consistent with what we have found throughout the region in the past week and is very concerning for the potential to cause large natural and human-triggered avalanches.