Quick report
- Aspect
- Northwest
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 3200 m
- Slope Angle
- 40°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Although there wasn't a lot of snow available for transport the winds still found every last bit of snow it could and was transporting and loading the lee side of ridges. Fresh wind slabs were triggered.</p>
4-6 mm Depth Hoar crystals found in our snowpit in the humpy creek drainage. Hard to trust a depth hoar snowpack even when buried this deep...
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>We triggered two wind slabs in the humpy creek drainage ranging from 6-12 inches in depth and 25-100 ft wide.</p> <p>It seems as though our persistent weak layers are hinting at gaining strength and becoming more stable over time. Where snowpack is deep (180-250 cm) it would be difficult to trigger a large persistent slab avalanche. The issue is in areas where the snowpack remains thin. How do we know where that is??? It is best to continue to avoid avalanche terrain (slopes between 30-45 degrees) on aspects facing NW-SE especially slopes that are thin and rocky, unsupported, have avalanched already this season or appear wind drifted. Any wind slab triggered has the potential to step down to buried persistent weak layers deeper in the snowpack creating a much larger unmanageable and unsurvivable avalanche. With a solid refresh in the Uintas forecasted there will be plenty of safe terrain to go enjoy the new snow without having to worry about triggering one of these big slides. Patience is key in times like these. </p>
Some dense loose provided good skiing out of the wind zone. The winds got to a lot of the terrain even at mid elevations and in some protected areas.