Smiley area and Galena Summit - conditions are worsening
Quick report
- Cracking
- specific
- Collapsing
- specific
I have been completely avoiding avalanche terrain for two days now and plan to continue that practice. I remotely triggered a handful of avalanches and observed a few large natural avalanches and a bunch of plow-triggered slides on Galena Pass. A video of one of the triggered slides is linked below. Crowns of triggered and natural avalanches were ragged and relatively narrow, compared to how widely they might have broken. Both triggered and natural avalanches required a steep slope (35ish) and wind loading. In many places the slab just had not consolidated to the point to allow for truly large and widespread avalanche activity. I think we continue to be on a trend of increasing danger. If we hit level 5 danger (extreme) it seems likely to occur during the intense precip, strong winds, and warm temps forecast for the evening of 2/4 into 2/5. I'm paying close attention to the terrain above and below me. These are the times when unexpected, hard-to-predict things happen. Keep your margins quite wide. Cracking and collapsing were much more common and wind affected terrain.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1.5
- Count
- 9
- Aspect
- NW
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 8200 ft
I remotely triggered a handful of avalanches and observed a few large natural avalanches and a bunch of plow-triggered slides. Crowns of triggered and natural avalanches were ragged and relatively narrow, compared to how widely they might have broken. In many places the slab just had not consolidated to the point to allow for truly large, widespread avalanche activity. I think we continue to be on a trend of increasing danger. If we hit level 5 danger (extreme) it seems likely to occur during the intense precip, strong winds, and warm temps forecast for the evening of 2/4 into 2/5.