Weather
- Air Temp
- 23
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- intense
- Recent Snowfall
- 60
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
Strong winds accompanied near continuous snowfall/grapple throughout the day.
Snowpack
We dug two pits today: 1) 6,300' on W aspect. 2) 6,425' on E/SE. We did not get propagation in Extended Column Tests (ECTN), but had several Sudden Planer (SP) failures during Compression Tests (CT) in both pits with easy/mod force in the storm snow. Storm snow appears to be generally right side up, and December facet/crust combos are now buried two to three feet below surface. We witnessed active wind transport with strong SW winds depositing falling grapple and copious amounts of storm snow on the lee side of the ridge. Plenty of evidence of wind slabs with textured, wind sculpted, surfaces extending far down slope.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1 R1
- Type
- SS
- Aspect
- SE
- Trigger
- AS
- Elevation
- 5600 ft
SS-ASu-R1-D1-S. Very small skier triggered wind slab avalanche on cross loaded mid-slope terrain feature. Crack propagated into adjacent gully from apex of skier turn. Crown grew from 5 inches where initiated to 8 inches. Soft wind slab turned to loose dry sluff once moving.