Quick report
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall, Wind Loading
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>The red flags I checked will likely not be much of an issue the next couple of days with warming temperatures. Even today I was not finding much instability other than some minor cracking in the fresh wind drifts and the new snow seems to have settled out fairly quickly. </p>
I did observe some shallow natural avalanches that happened during the storm, but nothing too big. This natural avalanche on a steep thin bushy slope broke about 75' wide, was 12-16" deep and ran to the trees below. These thin shallow places would be likely areas where a person could trigger a slide and the new snow was just enough added weight to trigger the avalanche.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>I was only getting some minor cracking in the fresh wind drifts along the higher ridge lines, but some of the bigger cornices looked sensitive and I did not mess with them. </p> <p>I only observed one small natural avalanche that likely happened during the storm in a steep thin bushy area that has had thin weak snow all winter. </p>
A nice storm for the area and it has really helped to fill in some thin spots and things look like winter. Quite a number of riders out today to enjoy the fresh snow and nice weather. Lots of aggressive tracks around the area with people riding hard on Moffit Peak, Gold Hill and the Whitney area and no human triggered avalanches that I observed.