Quick report
- Red Flags
- Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Poor snowpack structure is the only red flag in the terrain we covered and we avoided that by staying on the east facing portion of the bowl.</p>
A little disappointed when we got to the Guardmans pass road where there was only about 5 to 7 inches of light density new snow, but when we dropped into South Monitor there was a easy 12 to 14 in the bowl. The only instabilities noted on the PC Ridgeline was sluffing in steeper terrain which was easily managed, the snow was too low density to knock you down even if you got hit from behind. Seemed to me that even if you did ski terrain with old snow underlying it there was not enough of a load to get things moving, no slab, no avalanches, this only goes for the terrain we covered, not sure if there was a slab in upper LCC. We did get some cracking on the ridge line but it was isolated to the ridge and would not crack on the main slope.
Photos: Snow pit in the starting zone of South Monitor showing a thin layer of faceted snow at the ground, with a meltfreeze/rain rime crust above that then the new snow. Sluffing in steeper terrain while skiing, cracking in wind drifts on the ridge line.
Snowpack
Around a foot of light density snow sitting on a variety of surfaces, melt freeze crust on the east facing, thin breaking down crust with depth hoar underneath on the NE, N, NW and dirt on the south end of the compass.