Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>No recent avalanches observed anywhere, and we had good visibility. Took a good look in Cutler Basin too, and didn’t see anything. Did see one minor skier triggered sluff, likely from yesterday.</p> <p>Ski cut and jumped on a few hard slabs on slopes steep enough to slide, but couldn’t get anything to move. Got minor cracking only once. </p>
Lots of heavy riming in the upper elevation trees.
Snowpack
Found the variety of new and buried wind slabs that were forecasted, and noted by observers yesterday. Poked under the new snow and found pencil hard slabs in many areas, distributed around the compass.
Upper elevations were highly wind affected on the surface. Scoured ridgelines. Heavily loaded and cross loaded gullies in the main basin.
Mid and lower elevation slopes were more sheltered from the last round of winds, but I found the skiing to be inconsistent... ie I couldn’t relax and “trust” the snow in between turns on many slopes. Several slopes that started out soft turned into hard and breakable wind crust without warning.