Quick report
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Heavy Snowfall, Wind Loading
Started by tour up West Butler and worked by way over to Ice Box. Skies were cloudy all day with the sun making a few brief appearances. Snow was consistently falling throughout the morning with short intervals of significant precip rate. Snow was pretty stable; I only encountered one small wind slab. There seemed to be around 18+" of snow in the upper elevations. There were remnants of many point release slides from when the sun came out yesterday and I was surprised how far many of these slides ran. There is also a glide avalanche starting to release on the slabs between Gary's Gully and Ice Box; I suspect that the slabs in the surrounding drainages are likely in a similar state.
As the amount of people recreating in the mountains has exploded the last few weeks, please be mindful of those below and around you. On my second run, I was putting a ski cut in at the top of the chute. I had looked down the run, been listening for voices, and been checking if anyone was behind me the whole way up. In the middle of the cut, I look down and there is someone 50 feet below me. Thankfully nothing released but even after I checked a couple times, I still missed the two skiers below me. Looking back, I should have yelled if anyone was below. I know I would have felt terrible if I released something on top of a group I didn't realize was there.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>New snow seemed to be bonding well within the layer as well as with lower layers. I was surprised how little sluffing there was even in higher angle terrain. The biggest problem I saw was in the area between Ice Box and Gary's Gully as there were widespread point release avalanches. When I first arrived in the area around 9:30am, there was probably about 2 dozen point release slides that typically averaged 20 feet wide and ran the entire length of the slide path ~200ft with some running up to 500ft through trees and entraining enough snow to possibly bury a person. These all appeared to be triggered yesterday sometime when the sun came out and hit that NE aspect. By 2pm today there was a couple more inches of snow and this new snow was beginning to point release due to snow falling off trees and the sun making a few brief appearances. </p>