Quick report
We toured up Seattle Ridge to assess the effects of the last wind event, get an understanding of the surface conditions of the area, and to assess if there are any lingering surface instabilities in the snowpack. Overall we found variable surface conditions, with great snow in protected pockets, evidence of old avalanche activity, and good stability.
Observed evidence of large cornice failures in several locations that appeared to be at least a few days old. We saw one very small windslab that had released naturaly just below the ridge in Zero Bowl. Next to the skintrack exiting Warm-Up Bowl ~50' below the ridge (pics attached) appeared to be a fresh, very small glide crack opening up.Weather
- Air Temp
- 25
- Cloud Cover
- scattered
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Day started with mostly cloudy skies but enjoyed the clearning weather throughout the day and got to soak up some mid-winter sunshine. Temps were warmer than expected, in the mid20s. Lack of wind throughout the day.
Snowpack
Found overall variable snow surface conditions throughout the day. At and just below ridgetops surface riming and wind-stiffened snow were dominant. Elsewhere breakable crust from recent winds kept things interesting, but some areas were still harboring soft powder in sheltered locations.
We dug a quick pit on a W aspect in Warm-Up Bowl at 2800'. We found ~30cm of soft dry snow sitting on top of a 20cm thick melt-freeze crust overtop moist rounds. No concerning stability test results in our extended column test (ECT N 22 down 25 cm).