Quick report
Blue skies, recent fresh snow, and cool (seeming) temperatures made for a pleasant day at Copper Mountain. We continue to find reactive buried persistent weak layers when digging into the snowpack on sheltered northerly slopes at middle and upper elevations. These layers kept us avoiding avalanche terrain on NW-N-NE-E aspects today. Additionally, we found evidence of recent wind loading along exposed ridgelines and a widespread crust underneath the new snow (up to 8500'). Slopes facing the sun were warming today, and the snow surface was moist by 2pm.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 25
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- none
- Recent Snowfall
- 15 to 25
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Strong N winds observed transporting snow in the Boulders in the morning while driving by. Mostly clear skies and strong sunshine throughout the day. Temperatures remained below freezing with a light N/NW wind in the morning.
Snowpack
We dug two pits to track the presence of lingering persistent weak layers on shaded NW and NE slopes at 8500 and 8700', respectively.
- We found both buried surface hoar and well-developed facets sitting under consolidated slabs in both pits (50-90cm down)
- Both of these weak layers produced non-propagating ECT results, yet proved unstable in PST tests (PST 35/100 END on 2/16 SH interface and PST 29/100 END on 2/8 FC interface)
We also observed widespread supportable rain/temperature crusts on all aspects up to 8500' beneath the recent storm snow. These crusts were as thick as 8cm but thinned as we climbed in elevation.
Slopes facing the sun were cooking at all elevations today, and small roller-balls were easily triggered while travelling.
Avalanche
- Size
- D2 R2
- Aspect
- NE
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 8650 ft
We observed a variety of small thin (partially refilled) wind slab crown lines up near the ridgeline and a single more pronounced crown line that ran the length of a subridge.