Quick report
Beautiful day with killer snow conditions. Snowpack felt like a solid, mid-winter pack with the first 55-65cm of the pack being great powder. 10 out of 10, would ski again!! Biggest take away was the increasing SW winds and the large amounts of snow being transported, starting around 11am, and continuing all throughout the day. I do not think I want to be on any leeward slopes tomorrow. The slope we skied off of the top of Aggie (NNW) was beginning to get loaded in the morning and a 2-3cm unconsolidated slab had begun forming on the last 200 feet to the summit. We experienced a similar slab development towards the top (East facing) of Morrison Col, but this time it was consolidated. With numerous stomps/jumps, we were unable to get these slabs to move at either location. The North side of Morrison Col had a decent cornice on it, and some cracking evidence of the cornice settling onto the lower slope from previous skiers stomping around the top of it. After some pole probing it felt fine and was not a problem for us at that time. Most of the northern aspects we moved across held great, cold powder. Some solar exposed aspects had a small sun crust, but this was mostly felt on the more Western aspects that we skied when coming down to the valley from Aggie. Limited rollerballs and pinwheels were seen throughout most of the tour from the previous days warming, and only a (about) 20 foot long by 3-4 foot wide wet loose slide from sometime over the past two days (not today) was seen near the bottom of the skin track heading up Morrison Col - so small I am not adding it as an avalanche - it looked as a rock may have fallen off the cliff and pulled snow down with it. The West face of Mono Jim/Mini Morrison had lots of rollerballs from the past few days off of it, but no evidence of any full slides, surprisingly. Convict lake can be skinned across, but it was a little sketchy lol. Only instabilities we felt were the growing slabs from the growing winds and their respective depositions. No rollerballs, sluffs, cracking, whumpfing, etc. were triggered or observed.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 40
- Cloud Cover
- clear
- Wind Loading
- intense
- Recent Snowfall
- 0
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
Beautiful day with perfect temps. As the day progressed, we experienced increasing West/Southwest winds which were physically nice, but began moving lots of snow. Large gusts out of the Southwest along the McGee to Aggie ridgeline, on the summit of Aggie, and we witnessed large amounts of blowing snow to the East through the saddle between Great White Fang and Mt Morrison. Once exposed on the ridgeline to Aggie we witnessed our skin track behind us was filling in by the minute.
Snowpack
Snowpack felt pretty great today. Through probing and numerous hand shear tests throughout the day, we found a similar snowpack across most northern aspects. Towards the southern summit of Aggie we found a 2-3cm, unconsolidated slab - we guessed it to be a growing wind slab from the increasing winds. With numerous jumps when cutting back our switchbacks, we could not get the slab to slide or crack unless we pulled on it with our hands. It seems this problem will only grow with the current forecast. The last 100 feet toward the top of Morrison Col (East facing) provided a similar problem, but this time the slab was more consolidated and I was able to pick up big chunks of it. Still, I was not able to get it to move via stomping/jumping on it. 2-3cm in thickness. No pits were dug, but we took some rough measurements via probing throughout the day. Results are below. At 11,000 feet on a northern aspect of Aggie, via multiple probes... HS 155cm. We found 55-65cm of great, cold powder sitting on top of a thin crust layer. Below this was consolidated snow until another light crust layer 85-95 cm down. Below 130cm to the ground was soft, unconsolidated feeling snow. Could be those basal facets still down there... we did not dig a pit due to our limited concern for the intensity of any avalanche problems.