Quick report
- Collapsing
- isolated
Wind-affected areas were the most dangerous due to the fresh batch of wind slabs and cornices built by yesterday's wind and new snow. They also created localized thinner areas where you're more likely to trigger a larger persistent slab avalanche.
A few notable collapses. I listened to the largest one for almost 4 seconds. These were confined to variably wind-scoured terrain near a ridge. They occurred in thin areas within a messy stack of crusts and facets.Weather
- Air Temp
- low-20s F
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- light
- Recent Snowfall
- ~40 cm since (3/4)
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
Wind loading from the past couple of days created large dunes and scallops in the Soldier Foothills and the Soldiers. Much less wind affect was apparent in the S. Smokys and W. Smokys. Light wind-loading was confined to the uppermost reaches of the Soldiers today. Pretty tranquil at middle elevations. Skies started clear and increased to partly cloudy in the afternoon.
Snowpack
Storm snow since (3/4) totaled ~40 cm here and was redistributed into some neat dunes and drifts. A side-hilling snowmobile cut a small slab that released on an MFcr at this interface on a W aspect. Overall this interface was not concerning where I looked.
A graupel layer was down 55 cm, the (2/25) layer was down 60-75 cm, and the (2/1) was down 110 cm. There were no obvious signs of instability on these layers.
Avalanche
- Size
- D2.5
- Count
- 2
- Aspect
- E
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 8800 ft
There were several very small cornice failures, some of which triggered quickly tapering wind slabs. One large slab on N. Smoky Dome, and a larger Persistent Slab on Peak 3.