Quick report
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall, Cracking, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Through out the trip I side hilled several road cuts and initiated several small slides and produced a lot of shooting cracks. We even triggered a small slide on a road cut with the groomer. The avalanche danger is definitely high. Any slope we tickled, produced a red flag. </p>
The snowpack felt bottomless on snowmobiles, or, like boat trying to plane. Off trail maneuvering was a struggle so we found ourselves sticking to road throughout most of the trip. Doing that alone we was able to get plenty of face shots and pow turns.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>The January drought layer was easy to find today on the road cuts. This slide was initiated from the snowcat. </p> <p>With 2+ feet of new snow combined with the wind drifted snow all laying on top of the January drought facets its going to be a long while before we can safely venture into steeper terrain. </p>
In the high elevations above 8k feet we encountered thigh deep snow throughout the whole trip from around 25 to 30" deep. It was resting on about 8" of loose dense form last week and January (drought) facets. Basically, the snowpack felt bottomless today and our sleds felt like a boat trying to plane.