Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>The only red flag I noticed was wind affected snow at elevations above about 9,000' and near ridges. The snow had a slabby feel. I pulled on lots of quick columns I cut out with my ski pole and some of them sheared clean on the lower density snow below the wind affected layer but most of the columns were not very reactive. I could not get the snow to crack very much, even off the high ridges. I would rate the danger as generally Moderate where we were for wind slabs and possibly some stuffing in steep terrain. This next storm is an obvious concern because it's supposed to be denser snow on top of all this light, cold snow with wind. Could be exciting in the wrong ways.</p>
A photo of the trailbreaking conditions.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Repeat of text in Red Flags box: </p> <p>The only red flag I noticed was wind affected snow at elevations above about 9,000' and near ridges. The snow had a slabby feel. I pulled on lots of quick columns I cut out with my ski pole and some of them sheared clean on the lower density snow below the wind affected layer but most of the columns were not very reactive. I could not get the snow to crack very much, even off the high ridges. I would rate the danger as generally Moderate where we were. </p>
Deep. Too deep. We found the storm snow to be about a foot and a half and and closer two feet at upper elevations. Neff's Canyon seemed like a good choice for today since the storm strongly favored the city and benches and it seemed like the snow didn't get pushed far up the mountains. Luckily we had seven people to help with trailbreaking because we broke trail through deep, difficult snow to the summit of Neff's Canyon. The upper third of the canyon was somewhat wind affected, especially mid to late storm and it had a slabby, denser layer in the upper third of the new snow, which made trailbreaking difficult because you had to struggle to get your tips above the slab onto the surface. The wind affected areas also skied poorly and you had to be on a steep slope to get going in the knee-deep, slabby snow. Mid to lower canyon was better but everyone's skis still seemed to submarine much of the time, hard to keep tips up. Mostly the snow was just too deep. Better to stay in places with less new snow.