Quick report
- Cracking
- widespread
- Collapsing
- widespread
Impressively widespread cracking and collapsing. I shattered most slopes I touched once I got into untouched terrain (meandering groups of the elks of Sun Valley had collapsed much of the terrain on the first few miles of trail.
Weather
Drove over from Smiley in the morning, made a trip to Hailey first. Precip falling as snow until around Ketchum, then a rain/snow/sleet/rain mix down to Hailey. Back N to Eagle Creek, precip falling as wet snow when I left the trailhead and for much of my walk. There was break in precip in the late afternoon, accompanied by a touch of clearing and warming, then skies went OBS and a light, steady spit of freezing rain was observed as I topped out on the heawall around sunset. Precip continued as freezing rain/mist down to about 8,300' (ish), transitioning to an unfrozen rain at that point. Coastal vibrations out there.
Snowpack
Adding some complexity to the current surface with a few iterations of snow+ melt + driz + sun forming a variety of crusts (and likely smal facets) near the snow surface.
Avalanche
I remotely triggered: 1 x D1, 2 x D1.5, 1 x D2, and 1 x D3. I suspect I also remoted several other large (D2+) paths, but visibility was very poor. I am certain that I triggered large starting-zone sized collapses in/above a number of paths that can produce very large avalanches. The reported D3 I'm not entirely sure about, but I had a massive collapse in a large W-facing starting zone at 10,000', then saw what appeared to be fresh debris extending down to 7,500'.