Quick report
Sunny, calm day in the Alpental backcountry. Though temperatures rose throughout the day and solar aspects received nearly constant sun, our group did not observe any avalanche activity. As we began our exit around 1:30, we noticed boot penetration on the SE-facing slope we were on was increasing, with some members of our group postholing to their waists. Numerous large wet loose debris piles observed on the margins of the Source Lake fan and below the Bryant Couloir. No avalanches observed today.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- none
- Snow Avail For Transport
- none
Snowpack
Dug a test pit at 3800' on a SE aspect above Source Lake. HS of 180 with a 2-3 cm ice layer roughly 135 cm down. All snow above this layer was moist to wet melt forms with thin, intercalated crusts; dry snow was observed below the ice layer. Our compression test yielded CTH (28) down 75 cm, RP. The failure plane was a subtle interface between layers of smaller (2-3 mm) and larger (≥5 mm) melt forms.