Quick report
- Cracking
- specific
Cracking underfoot and up to 10 m in length where wind had built more cohesive slabs. New snow ranged from 15 -20 cm and was drifted up to 40 cm in lee areas. X skies with S2-S4 precip and mod/strong westerly winds. Moderate snow transport for most of the day. On both NE and NW aspects at 7,500', we had several (n=11) CTs and ECTs (n=10) that either failed on isolation or with Easy (1-10) loading steps about 20 cm down on what we think is the 20240105 interface. Most CT results had sudden collapses (SC) and ECTs propagated about 70% of the time (probably a function of how much wind had stiffened the slab). In some spots, this interface is characterized by 1-2cm of large grained surface hoar. On others, buried near-surface-facets or crust-facet-combos were observed. We also occasionally noted some similar results on a mid-storm density change about 15cm down. This "upside down" storm snow felt punchy and had a 5-7cm thick layer of denser, heavily rimmed or even some graupel that fell last night as temps warmed. Deeper facets and depth hoar were much more stubborn and infrequently produced any noteworthy results. i
Avalanche
45.01057, -116.13172, East, 7,600' SS-N-D1.5-I