Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
Cold day, low density snow ~10 inches of snowfall the night before. Snowfall and wind increased as we climbed the ridge to around 5800 ft, large cornices and heavily wind effected snow marked the transition from near treeline to above treeline. We observed wind transport along ridge filling in previous ski track from about an hour before. We ended up taking shelter in trees and had some great turns in for a few laps. Additional instabilities observed were loose dry instability (minor sluffing) and isolated wind slab instability at the tops of ridge lines. The Friday snow appeared to fall right side up from quick pits and made for some quality skiing conditions.
Avalanche
Pea gravel ridge, 15F, 6100 ft, ENE aspect, cornice failure. As we were hiking along the ridge line a medium-large sized cornice released from ~ 5 ft from failure to my standing position. No widespread propagation or slab avalanche appeared to be triggered from the cornice failure. Spooky moment nonetheless.