Quick report
- Cracking
- specific
- Collapsing
- specific
We were greeted with moderate winds but a ceiling up to about 8k to start the day, just obscuring Forbidden and Eldo as we reached our high point. By 10a we started getting flurries and by mid-day gusty WSW 20-30mph winds were pushing significant amounts of loose dry snow and 1-2cm of new into soft very reactive windslabs. Old windslabs were very stubborn early in the day, but would occasionally collapse in isolated areas around exposed boulders. By 3p new shallow slabs were cracking and collapsing on leeward aspects and cross loaded gullies, easily collapsed and released on ski cuts. New snow was falling onto loose old snow from earlier in the week and a knife hard melt freeze crust buried anywhere between 0-30cm deep in hand pits. SH had significant spatial variability, anywhere between 120-300cm (my partner and I both thought the other had a saw so didn’t dig any formal pits).
Avalanche
Intentionally triggered small D1 windslab, up to 10cm deep at the crown 30m wide and ran appx 70m. All recently deposited snow running at the old snow interface.