Quick report
- Aspect
- South
- Red Flags
- Rapid Warming
- Elevation
- 3078 m
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Some warming today but we were off warmer slopes by 1pm so didn't really observe wet avalanche conditions.</p>
The most notable observation from Green Slope was how thin the snowpack was. We dug in this area about 2 weeks ago and had a snow height of 165cm. Today the snow height from probing around was more like 100 cms. The thinner snow was a little bit of a red flag but the snowpack was plenty strong. This may have been sort of an outlier - two other pits on south facing slopes had snow depths of 150cms or more.
After skiing Green Slope, we also dug near the top of Crest Pass. Here we also found a multitude of hard crusts and had not results on snowpit tests.
We also dug on Preston Peak and also found strong snow here too. It was actually difficult to isolate a column due to all the strong melt freeze crusts. The snow here was also much deeper than on Green Slope, possibly do more wind loading
In addition, we also looked at north facing slope just outside of the Brighton boundary. The warm weather has prevented near surface faceting and some of the new snow is slowly decomposing. This should help with bonding if / when it starts snowing again.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Overall snowpack is quite strong. Cooler temperatures will also help with a more solid re-freeze and will further strengthen the pack. </p>
Good corn skiing (in February, unfortunately) on upper elevation south facing slopes before about noon. Snow was supportable even with warm overnight temperatures. This would probably be different in areas that didn't freeze as much, like lower elevations.