Quick report
- Cracking
- widespread
We ran into road closures and unplowed trailheads again this morning and chose to go to Schallenberger Ridge. Widespread cracking occurred while skinning in the top 8 inches of recent storm snow on all aspects traveled. This storm slab instability appeared to be a graupel layer in the recent snow that may have had some needles mixed in. Trail breaking was deep, with snow settlement occurring slowly with the cold temperatures. We dug a snowpit on the ridge at 6600'. The storm snow is mostly right side up with over 5 feet of new snow since Sunday night.
Weather
- Air Temp
- Below freezing
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- light
- Recent Snowfall
- 40
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
Snowfall at 2 inches/hour this morning with moderate to strong SW winds at our high point on the exposed ridge just below 7000 feet.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1
- Aspect
- N
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 6800 ft
We observed widespread storm slab cracking while skinning and saw 2 small natural storm slab avalanches that occurred on small steep rollover features. Our tour involved travel on well under 30 degree terrain with limited visibility to any steeper areas.