Quick report
We toured to Tunnel Ridge for a Friends of FAC photo shoot and a welfare check on the weather station.
- The surface snow was highly variable. Surface crusts at low elevations made travel efficient.
- Shaded slopes held dry snow up to 10 inches above the most recent Equinox crust.
- Snow surfaces that received sun were moist by 10 am and were transitioning to wet by noon.
- We observed many wet-loose avalanches on steep slopes on the surrounding terrain, however, they appeared to have run yesterday (3/31) or earlier.
- Monster cornices were observed along ridgelines, but we did not observe any cornice failures.
- Instability was limited to widespread rollerballs as we traveled today.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 28 to 40
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- none
- Recent Snowfall
- 0
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Few clouds and mostly clear skies with a lot of sunshine. Winds were calm.
Snowpack
Snow profile at 6750 feet on a northwest aspect
- HS: 305 cm
- 5 cm of recent snow over a 2 cm melt-freeze crust.
- 15 cm of dry snow below melt-freeze crust.
- Early February crust is down 65 cm from the surface.
Snow profile at 6790 feet on a south aspect
- HS: 210 cm
- 10 cm thick surface crust was transitioning from moist to wet, but still mostly supportable to skis.
- 12 cm pencil hard crust below the surface crust
- Varying layers of dense crusts down 100 cm, making for an increasingly stable snowpack.
Avalanche
- Size
- D2.5 R2
- Type
- HS
- Count
- 3
- Aspect
- NE
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 7800 ft
Many wet loose avalanches on the steep slopes in the surrounding terrain were observed.