Quick report
Last Thursday, we spent the day at Salt Creek Summit practicing avalanche rescue and observing the snow pack. Snow conditions were wet and heavy. We dug our snow pit on the east aspect at 6,134 ft. along the Canal Road. We performed a compression test as well as an extended column test. In the compression test, we had a slight collapse at CT23, which was 45 cm from the surface, but the column did not fracture until CT33, at 69 cm from the surface. During the ECT, we observed an initiation at ECT39 66 cm from the surface, but no propagation. Based on these results we concluded that there was likely a low probability of triggering an avalanche, however there would have been high consequences had one happened. We were on a school field trip, and therefore opted to stay out of avalanche terrain, so we traveled pretty cautiously. The weather was nice, It was sunny with no clouds, and very warm. It was also moderately windy. In the afternoon, we observed pinwheels and rollerballs on east aspects at high elevations, below the Pyramid, and in South Bowl. These were not observed in the morning when we arrived. Overall, we would say the stability was good. It would have been pretty hard to trigger an avalanche, however it may have had huge ramifications.
Avalanche
We observed what looked like wet loose avalanches on the eastern aspect at high elevations near or above treeline. It looked like it occurred the day we were there, April 27th, 2023. It seemed to be naturally occurring. Nobody was at that elevation, we observed from the bottom of the range. We could not really see the size.