Quick report
Traveled from the Little Elk Trailhead to the Baird weather station for maintenance. The stations batteries were not charging and we needed to figure out why. Turns out, the snowpack had covered the solar panels. HS in this area is now ~295cm (9.5 feet) after settling over the past few days. As we traveled up the canyon, temperatures were cold and inverted in the morning. The truck read 10F when we parked at the trailhead, while the Baird station read 24F. A solid refreeze created a 3-4 cm crust at low and middle elevations. As we traveled higher, east and south aspects were starting to warm by 10:30. We noticed multiple small wet loose avalanches on SE aspects at middle elevations and 1 wet loose avalanches on NW terrain. We talked to a couple parties who reported larger heat related avalanches in neighboring canyons. All these avalanches likely occurred in the previous 48 hours. As we descended around 13:00, snow had warmed considerably, and was isothermal at lower elevations. The top 20cm of snow had become wet and unsupportable on East and South aspects while West aspects help 3-5 cm of wet snow. We were able to initiate sizable pinwheels and roller balls, but noticed no additional avalanches.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 10F in the morning. Warm at upper elevations (upper 30s or low 40s).
- Cloud Cover
- clear
- Wind Loading
- none
Clear skies through our trip (0900 - 1330). Winds were calm and temperatures were in the upper 30s to low 40s F at the middle elevation band.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1
- Type
- WL
- Count
- 2
- Aspect
- SE
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 8800 ft