Silvern Scout

We dug in two areas near the Silvern and Schufer lakes to get a wrap our heads around the spatial variability since last week’s wind. Conclusion: it’s variable! On a sheltered south aspect near Silvern lake at 1500 m, we found the mid-Jan SH down 30 cm and the early January facets down 60 cm. Snowpack tests produced a sudden planar result in a CT on the early January facets and no results in an ECT. On heavily wind-loaded NNE facing feature at 1500 m, we came across a machine-triggered size 1.5 avalanche that looked to be approximately 48 hours old. In a fracture line profile, we identified a stubborn wind slab interface down 30 cm and the mid-January SH layer down 60 cm. These layers produced repeatable sudden planar results in CT tests but no results in an ECT.

Heavily wind-loaded feature. Debris chunks and snowpack tests in a fracture line profile revealed a surface wind slab that stepped down to the mid-January SH/FC layer.