Quick report
- Aspect
- North
- Elevation
- 2957 m
- Slope Angle
- 12°
We dug on a north facing 12° slope at 9,700'. We found a total height of snow of 41" (105cm). The snowpack in this location was more supportable than some thinner lower elevation slopes where we would sink straight to the ground as soon as we stepped off the sleds. We were in a protected area that had received very little wind affect. We found 4-6mm chains of depth hoar (very weak sugary crystals ) near the ground and this was the layer of concern. In this location we did not have a very thick slab (thicker harder, more dense snow) over the top of the facets, we were on a very slight slope (12°) and we got no propagation with our extended column tests. The snowpack structure was poor, but without more weight in this location we didn't see any avalanches, or get any cracking, collapsing, or whumpfing.
Photo of snowpit showing weak sugary faceted snow near the ground.
Photo looking at the weak sugary faceted snow.
Photo (zoomed in) of 4-6mm chained depth hoar (weak sugary snow) near the ground.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Recent wind drifted snow avalanches from strong winds within the last 3-4 days. </p> <p>Poor snowpack structure- needs more weight in the form of new snow or more wind to create more problems. </p>
Snow was primarily sastrugi (wind sculpted like the red rocks), wind board (breakable wind crust) and stiff hard pillows of wind loaded snow in down wind areas. We saw lots of cornices and recent avalanche activity from sometime in the last 3-4 days failing on the downwind (primarily north-east) facing slopes. We did find a few protected meadows with good riding out of the wind zone.
Photo of sastrugi on the plateau
Photo of soft turns in a protected meadow