Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
Toured towards the West ridge of broken top bowl towards the top of pucker up. Rain/sun crust is supportable above about 7k', punchy below. At 0915 it was very hot and solar on all E-S-SW aspects, and there were spontaneous roller balls forming on the steeper terrain in addition to a small overnight loose avalanche that had released on Pucker up. Because of the heat, I bailed on my idea to go to West face. Kicked small cornices and made a small ski cut on the face looker's left of pucker up. There was isolated cracking in wind drifts along the west ridge, but no propagation beyond my skis. New snow rollerballed, fanned, entrained surface snow for several hundred feet. Moving into the bowl proper, I observed a number of point releases entraining new snow on all aspects within the bowl. Water was running off the West facing rocks, and I heard two rockfall events somewhere near 11-o'clock. I skied the 3 o'clock couloir which was shaded and sheltered, about 6cm of new medium density snow on supportable crust. Odd day to assign a hazard. Human triggered likely, naturals possible, but everything small and confined to the new snow.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1
- Aspect
- SW
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 8500 ft
Natural avalanche off of the cliff between 3 O'clock couloir and A La Mode. Hanging bowl point released off the rocks, entrained new snow, waterfall over the cliff. D1-.