Quick report
- Red Flags
- Collapsing, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Got some collapsing of the snowpack on to basal faceted snow on some of the flatter terrain, especially in the bottom of the valley. Very poor snowpack structure. Difficult to isolate columns.</p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Even though it was supposed to be my day off (ha, there is never such an animal as my long-suffering wife often reminds me) I dug about 6 quick pits and found it difficult to isolate columns in about half of them and the other half failed easily on medium wrist taps. No I did not want to venture steeper than 30 degrees and played it safe all day. Sorry no photos snow profiles or videos on my day off. That's all I got.</p> <p>Danger rating is tricky because with a shallow snowpack, even small avalanches are high consequence because of almost certainly hitting rocks and logs on the way down. So avalanches are automatically higher consequence. Avalanche danger is probability times consequence. So the danger is higher than similar sized avalanches in a deeper snowpack. Not sure if it's Level 4 or Level 3. Since I'm not willing to even consider going on or underneath steeper slopes right now, it's probably Level 4 using the pucker factor, which is far more reliable than the official definitions.</p>
Nice riding conditions and the new snow has greatly improved things, especially with Thursday's dense snow.