Quick report
• Fresh wind slabs from last night’s storm were present at all elevations, but sheltered, treed terrain still held plenty of soft snow. Other than the mini slab mentioned above, for the most part these new slabs were unreactive to ski cuts. • No shooting cracks or audible collapses. • Total snowfall for the Jan. 3rd/4th storm was about 4-5” with 0.20-0.30” of water on the Canyon floor. • Dug a snow pit in the Burnout avalanche path at 5200’ elevation on an E aspect, 25° slope. Snow depth was 30”. Found a right-side up snowpack - generally denser layering with depth. 20” soft slab (F to 4F hard) resting on top of melt-freeze crust with no facets at the interface. Not propagation with an Extended Column Test.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Recent Snowfall
- 13
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
• Overcast skies with light snowfall in the morning which ended around mid-day with a trace of accumulation. • Winds subsided substantially in the night and were calm on the Canyon floor and light from the SW above 6000’. • Air temperatures in the morning were inverted with the single digits °F on the Canyon floor and low-20s around 6500’. The afternoon the Arctic air had mixed out of the Canyon, and it warmed to the mid-20s °F at all elevations.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1 R1
- Type
- SS
- Count
- 2
- Aspect
- E
- Trigger
- AS
- Elevation
- 5100 ft
• 1 recent avalanche in the Infinity path above the rail, south aspect. I could only see debris and not the crown. Destructive size 2 (D2) and debris ran ½ path terminating well above the grade. Judging by debris and no visible crown, I think this was likely a wind slab that failed on the pre-storm interface and not a deeper weak layer. SS-N-D2-I. • No other avalanches observed except we ski cut a very small (6’ wide, 12” thick) wind slab in Shed 5 at 5100’ on an east aspect, SS-ASc-D1-I