Quick report
A lack of feedback underfoot on targeted features suggests wind slabs and persistent slabs are becoming more stubborn, in part because yesterday's winds stiffened slabs. Wind loading was increasing this afternoon, mostly above treeline, and potentially changing conditions as we exited the alpine. Pitwork on a sheltered E/NE aspect at 11,000' showed the March 23 faceted crust is weak (thin and collapsible over 1.5 mm facets) but still seems to lack a problematic cohesive slab; tests were not propagating failures.
Numerous slab avalanches ran in the past 24 hours. Widespread rollerballs below 11k, especially on north to east aspects. No collapses or cracking underfoot, despite stomping above many suspect features.Weather
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Wind Loading
- moderate
- Recent Snowfall
- 10 to 15
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Partly cloudy this morning increased to mostly cloudy this afternoon with a few snow flurries, no accumulation. Winds increased around 1 p.m. and started transporting snow. The classic fetches are scraped pretty dry, but the stronger winds continued to find some transportable snow.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1
- Type
- SS
- Count
- 11
- Aspect
- N
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 12100 ft
New avalanche activity that ran during yesterday's storm or overnight: A handful of small (D1-1.5) wind slabs above treeline in the Ruby Range and Whetstone. Several large cornice falls in Redwell and Axtell, a couple of which pried out ~2 ft. persistent slabs. Several large persistent slabs (D1.5 to D2.5) appeared to fail on the March 23 interface, about 2 feet deep near and above treeline in Evan's Basin and Redwell.