Quick report
- Aspect
- Northeast
- Red Flags
- Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 2987 m
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Pretty good snowfall rates, but the new snow was very low density thus not much of a load on the snowpack.</p>
Nothing new except ECT was propagating. Not sure if there are any facets around the rime crust at 60 cm; however, the very low density new snow could become the weak layer if Monday's snow comes in warm and wet with wind. The bigger concern remains facets near the ground. 40cm of facets in this location, but the ones that the ECT was propagating on were just above a crust at 40 cm.
The two RED FLAGS are
- The poor snowpack structure you can see in the photo. A slab of strong snow on top of weak facets.
- The Extended Column Test (ECT) result. It propagated after 13 taps (3 from the elbow). This means a crack was initiated in the weak facets without much force, and then the crack propagated across the column.
Snowpack
The new snow made a big improvement on riding conditions by covering the rime crust that formedthe morning of Friday, Dec 18