Quick report
- Collapsing
- specific
We experienced the snowpack collapsing while skiing and skinning in low-angle terrain at the foot of middle ridge (East aspect, 7700 feet). Collapses occurred toward the end of the day after sun warmed the snow and after heavy snowfall had started. Snowpack collapsed locally while skinning a second lap on the skin track we put in, and then again at the top of the slope once our group of three was in ski mode (once one person moved forward to the rest of the group and turned to stop). We were not able to observe where in the snowpack the collapse happened, though a hand shear earlier at that spot showed new storm snow sliding as a poorly bonded slab, and below that a planar shear of last week's snow above the crust layer.