Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
Spent an unexpected beautiful (sunny, no winds, warm) morning in the ravine on Dec.23 before the new snow. Lots of varied surfaces in the bowl: the brown/pine needly snow that was soft cream-cheese texture on Saturday is now firm and supportive; patches of ice; firm layer that could become icy but isn’t yet; wind drifts that firmed up; loaded features (~15cm). Pre-storm, the loaded parches were isolated and easy to distinguish from the rest. The two notable patches of this snow were found on the convexity between chicken rocks and right gully at 1300-1400m and skier’s right in chicken rocks. Some shooting cracks in those places! Lobster claw was icy (S-SW aspects); Left was a mix of icy patches & refrozen wind drifts (E aspect) that brown snow and firm layer (NE aspect), Right had great soft snow that was not propagating on too of a firm layer (S aspect), the fan of the Chute (E) was refrozen debris and loading (almost whomphing) skier’s right. Where did all those long pine needles come from—such a distinctive layer that can be found in patches all over the bowl but isn’t widespread. It will be interesting to see how all these different surfaces bond with the new snow from this storm cycle!
Avalanche
Old debris in chute