Quick report
- Aspect
- North
- Elevation
- 2957 m
- Slope Angle
- 20°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>This was our first venture up White Pine for the season. We were just curious what it was like. We were surprised there was pretty good coverage, perhaps average for this time of year. There was quite a bit of ski traffic in the drainage but almost all skiers seemed to stick to fairly conservative terrain and in the forest. There was quite a few tracks off the Spire and tracks were creeping up into the lower aprons of Tri-Chutes and lower Columbine Bowl. I didn't notice any tracks in elevations above about 10,000'. The snowpack seemed pretty stable. I probed extensively, pushing my ski pole down to the ground, and the snowpack is generally over a meter deep, 110-130 cm, 3-4 feet. You can usually feel the faceted snow near the ground but there's quite a stiff slab above it and it's buried pretty deep now, so it's starting to heal. I didn't find too many shallow snowpack areas but up in the wind zone there's probably quite a few lingering slopes of shallow, weak snow that could be triggered. My only snow profile was on a north facing slope at 9,700' and it was surprisingly deep, 150 cm. It was a boring snowpack with weak, recrystallized snow on the surface, then a quite stiff, thick, homogenous slab, all sitting on about 50 cm of old depth hoar near the ground. The depth hoar was quite strong and I could not get it to initiate nor propagate a collapse even with hard blows. I was curious to dig a snow profile in some shallower areas but ran out of time. The surface snow is the weakest layer in the snowpack, so if the snow falling tonight and on Saturday slides, it will most likely be sliding on today's surface snow. </p>
My only snow profile was on a north facing slope at 9,700' and it was surprisingly deep, 150 cm. It was a boring snowpack with weak, recrystallized snow on the surface, then a quite stiff, thick slab, all sitting on about 50 cm of old depth hoar near the ground. The depth hoar was quite strong and I could not get it to initiate nor propagate a collapse even with hard blows. I was curious to dig a snow profile in some shallower areas but ran out of time.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>With the new snow expected to fall tonight and on Saturday, most avalanche activity will be within the new snow or on the somewhat recrystallized pre-existing snow surface. I would expect the most activity within the new snow to be wind slabs within the new snow.</p> <p>There's still weak, depth hoar near the ground. The shallow snowpack areas will have the weakest snow and be the easiest to trigger. Keep poking your ski pole down through the snow like a blind person to feel for this buried weak layer.</p>
Surface snow is several days old and with the clear skies these past few days, it's beginning to facet. It's cold snow because of the clear sky plus it's a little faceted, so it skis a little slow and scratchy, a bit like loud powder.