Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
Strong east winds were present all day above 6,000 feet. It appeared that almost all of the snow from the last week had been transported. Shallow slabs were present on some leward features, but on solar aspects, much of the new snow had been stripped away entirely. The top few inches of these slabs cracked easily. Cracks were isolated, and I did not find any evidence that they were deep or consequential enough to be of concern. I dug a pit on a SE slope just below the ridge at 7,000 feet to assess the ski run. HS 140 cm. ECTN20 at 30 cm (last week's storm interface). ECTN22 at 50 cm on a thin ice crust (President's day interface). ECTP25 at about 80 cm below an ice crust. The deep failure propogated in one test and not the other, and did not break with much energy.
Avalanche
Observed a D2 natural avalanche that ran down the west facing (steeper) portion of the avalanche path either during the President event, or last week. It ran for about 1,500 vertical feet.