Quick report
- Aspect
- North
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 2713 m
- Slope Angle
- 25°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>We didn't notice any cracking or collapsing which is a bit of a change from earlier in the week. </p> <p>The biggest red flag is the snowpack structure. It was very easy to push your hand or pole through the weak facets and leave the more recent snow intact. This will be around for a while.</p> <p>The east wind and unusual loading patterns are the next red flag. Maybe these wind slabs are less of an issue now, but east winds can load slopes in unexpected ways and have been responsible for several accidents.</p>
Snow pit did not produce eye popping propagation but maybe that's because the slab was relatively soft where we dug, which was out of the wind. See video below. The main take away is really the poor snow structure.
Snowpack
East winds from perhaps 12/28 created widely variable snow conditions in open areas. Some places were firm, others were deeper and dense, often within the space of a few feet. This made skiing a little inconsistent.
The winds also created unusual loading and scouring patterns. East winds are not common and we observed wind drifts in locations we had never seen them form before. See photo below for example of scouring.