Quick report
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall, Wind Loading, Rapid Warming
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>As Tremper put it in his book, snowpacks are like people; they don't like change, and with hard-to-keep-track-of amounts of water weights of snow, changing densities, and temperature fluctuations, it seems like the snowpack is understandably cranky. </p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>the meadow chutes area is somewhat protected from SW winds, but considering that we were "riding" (I was on my board) on the top 5" of snow it was clear that one way or another a slab had developed with a nice skiable layer on top. So we kept our slope angles low (until we couldn't, but that was down lower where there was less slab development) and in the trees (Greens basin). </p> <p> </p> <p>with the big warmup in temps, maybe the snow won't be blowing around so much? but of course with a big warmup, other problems present themselves....</p> <p>Geek that I am, I also did a little sniffing around in PoFo (Mill Creek) later in the day after the temps really seemed to jump and of course it was as wet as I anticipated up to about 8k+. Wet slides make me nervous; many times they aren't big and they aren't fast, but they can pack a surprising punch and being carried along in concrete towards trees feels suboptimal, so I didn't venture far into the goo. </p> <p> </p> <p>But with a rapid cool-down expected and new snow, maybe that snow that got wet and heavy will be just a solid block for the new snow to stack on, and all we'll have to deal with is new snow instabilities? </p> <p> </p>