Quick report
- Cracking
- widespread
- Collapsing
- widespread
Natural slides at clough pt confirming mornings avalanche forecast. More natural avalanches on road cuts on eastern aspect. Snowmobiling was tricky at times, with poor visibility from wind blown snow, over the hood face shots, blind holes on the inside of the road (from rain on snow event in December) and deep wind drifts of the outside of the road. We did not snowmobile off road. Snow had and upside down/punchy feeling from the temperatures rising overnight. Ski touring from the sleds, the first steps into the hillside produced a collapse in the local terrain. Many more collapses as we climbed higher. As forecasted, strong winds had created wind slabs/ whales but at times offered a reprieve from the tough trail breaking. My partner and I had spoken the night before and identified the non-avalanche terrain we wanted to access. There’s a lot you can learn from touring in high avalanche danger, all of the signs of instability were present. We remotely triggered multiple slides from a ridge top, getting close to cornices that broke, triggering propagation below in steep north facing terrain. Descending low angle terrain was slow and difficult, occasionally you would sink to your waste and come to a complete stop almost hyperextending the legs, the snow was deceivingly covered, smooth snow surfaces hid underlying rocks, sticks, and trees. Snowpack behaved just as predicted by the Payette Avalanche Center this morning-highly unstable, sensitive, and spooky. Widespread instability on all aspects
Weather
- Wind Loading
- intense
Strong wind and decent snowfall left 2-4 inches in a few hours.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1.5
- Aspect
- W
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 6500 ft
Many natural slides on clough pt from early morning of 1/9/24