Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Cracking, Poor Snowpack Structure
Went for a nice tour in Willow today, started up and found S facing to feel quite hollow under the new snow and could definitley feel the facets just probing with a pole. As we continued up we worked out way onto N/NW facing, while probing with our poles ut felt right side up and we were not getting any cracking or collapsing until we got closer the the east Willow ridge above the knob. We decided to dug a pit at about 9,600' NW facing and check things out. What we found was a weak layer 25cm deep from what i think is surface hoar. Our results were: CT4 ECTP2. Other than this the overall structure looks good on this aspect. When we were done testing we jumped on the top of the pit and got it to collapse and crack about 20' wide. It doesnt appear to propagate with much energy but definitley still does.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>A tricky weak layer, i suspect from surface hoar. While probing with a pole the structure feels right side up but when we dug our put it stuck out like a sore thumb. There is a soft slab of the new snow that was breaking and propagating on this layer </p> <p>There are deep pockets of drifted snow, we found the deepest to be on the W/NW side of ridges. We also saw the higher elevations getting hammered by a S/SE wind. </p>