Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Cracking, Collapsing, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p> Strong southwest winds blew all day and I could see the plumes of snow off the high peaks on the drive to the forest this morning. A few collapses of the buried weak layer while moving around and some cracking of fresh wind drifted snow along the exposed ridge lines. It felt like a day of changing avalanche conditions. </p>
As I rolled into Gold Hill this morning I noticed this natural avalanche from a few days ago. This slope will get wind loaded from a southerly direction and the rocky terrain probably had some really weak and shallow snow that got overloaded.
The weather forecasted the next few days could really stress the persistent weak layer with strong winds, deep snow and some water weight. I would sure think the area could go through a decent natural avalanche cycle.
A few shallow sensitive wind drifts starting to develop with the gusty south winds.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>The buried persistent weak layer is still quite easy to locate on most of the aspects I traveled on today. In the Gold Hill Basin it is down about a foot and a half from the snow surface and this layer consistently propagates a crack across an isolated column of snow which is a great clue to unstable snow. This weak layer could get quite active with new snow, strong winds and some water weight. </p> <p>Moderately strong southwest winds had no problem finding snow to blow around and create fresh wind drifts. I was finding these wind drifts to be shallow this afternoon, but will increase in depth and size as the storm develops tomorrow. </p>
Maybe a trace to a couple inches overnight and the snow conditions are quite good with mostly supportable snow. I did find a couple stumps while riding in and out of Gold Hill today, but no sled damage.