Quick report
- Cracking
- widespread
- Collapsing
- widespread
Unstable snowpack on the shady side with blatant warning signs from collapses, shooting cracks, and remote triggers. Soft slabs were about 16" thick by midday. We stuck to mellow terrain and only tangoed with relatively short, steep pitches. I would expect larger avalanches in bigger terrain features. Low-elevation southerlies still have plenty of sagebrush and veg poking out; we had no concerns traveling on or under these types of slopes today.
On E and NE aspects, signs of instability were widespread with shooting cracks up to several hundred feet, remote triggers, and collapses becoming more audible as slabs thickened.Weather
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- none
- Rain Elevation
- Below valley floor
- Recent Snowfall
- 40
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
Moderate snowfall rates this morning under a warming trend meaning the snow started to feel a bit denser as the day progressed. We left around noon and there was about 14" to 18" of new snow.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1 R1
- Type
- SS
- Count
- 3
- Aspect
- NE
- Trigger
- AS
- Elevation
- 10400 ft
Every steep slope we traveled near would either spiderweb crack or avalanche on the old, weak snow buried by this storm cycle. Visibility was too poor to see any of the surrounding terrain.