Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
Toured North of Tamarack Resort and encountered variable conditions. Observed evidence of widespread avalanches, assumed to be natural from the recent warming event, buried under the recent snow. Debris was rock hard and chunky and made for challenging skiing. New snow depth was also variable, though there was very little visible evidence of wind, open terrain near the ridge was dust on crust, while lower sheltered treed terrain held better skiing. Found very isolated cracking and pockets of more consolidated wind slabs along the ridge top on the same aspect that rode like it had been scoured. We did experience dry loose sluffing in steep terrain, but not more than we anticipated managing. Overall, experienced good stability on north and east aspects. Finished the day by digging a pit on a southeast aspect at 7350’. Found poor snowpack structure but good test stability. HS 165. CT 5 Q3-PC at density change within new snow (HST 20cm) 6cm above the first crust. The middle mass of the snowpack was well bonded to crust layers within it but resting on weak facets to the ground. CT and ECT did not produce a result at that interface but shovel was able to shear the large slab at the weak layer.