Quick report
- Aspect
- Northeast
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 2438 m
- Slope Angle
- 28°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>We didn’t see any recent avalanches in the Lambs Canyon region, but the heavy snowfall landed on a variety of supportable crusts. During most turns, you could feel the crust underneath from previous warm temperatures and sunshine.</p> <p>Though the snow was pretty deep for Lambs, the poor snowpack still existed, with both small-grain facets beneath the dust crust and facets near the ground. In both spots, though, they seemed to be primarily rounding.</p>
We traveled in Lambs Canyon today to see how the new snow was behaving and to investigate the two PWLs outlined in the avalanche forecast. The trailhead had 3–4 inches of new snow, while we found 10–12 inches at mid-elevations, which had fallen on a stout crust. No new avalanches were observed, and the new snow seemed to be right-side up.
We dug a pit on a northeast slope at 8,000 feet, where we found a thin layer of facets below the dust layer, 45 cm beneath the surface (ECTN16), and our early-season weak snow 110 cm down. Snow depths varied significantly with elevation and aspect in this zone, so we targeted a deeper, colder slope for our pit.
While we found a generally poor snowpack structure, all of the faceted snow showed signs of rounding. It seems like it would take a very large load to impact the facets near the ground, even in shallower snowpacks like Lambs.
Moving into the weekend, wind will likely be the key player in these zones. A bit more of a slab, and the wind-drifted snow will be sensitive on top of the supportable crust, making it more likely to step down into the facets below the dust crust interface.
Snowpit on a NE slope at 8000'
ECTN16 down on crust dust interface
New storm snow
Clues of some wind during the storm - E aspect - 8000'
Price of entry at lower elevations
Snowpack
Anywhere between 8–12" of new low- to medium-density, right-side-up snowfall. Trail breaking was generally easy in many areas. At lower elevations near the car, the snow surface began to transition to slightly damp. The periods of sun didn’t seem to have much of an impact yet.