Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Rapid Warming, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Not much going on on the slopes I traveled - numerous drops of soft cornices and slope cuts produced no sluffs or slabs. Cracking of cornices and wind drifts was minor. No collapsing. The new snow seems to be stabalizing rapidly.</p> <p>Two layers of facets in the upper snowpack still have potential as weak layers, but they seem to need more of a load, or a faster load applied. Out of the last storm, only Brighton and Snowbasin reported more than an inch of storm water equivalent, which isn't much wieght. Most likely place to trigger a slide on these weak layers would be on a significantly wind drifted slope.</p> <p>Steeper south facing slopes may get active with more heating tomorrow. I think this would be new snow only, running on the sun crusts, which could allow for entrainment, and larger debris piles than expected.</p>
Decided to take a closer look at the weakest snow pack - those annoyingly erratic places where you can plunge your pole all the way to the ground. I've been finding them on northerly facing slopes from the lower elevations to over 10,000', in snow pack areas that are shallow for some reason - receiving generally lower snow amounts through out the season, wind scoured, or lower elevation.
Total snow pack was about 3 1/2 feet deep, and it was easy to plunge my pole basket deep into the snow. I think of these areas as either trigger points, or the potential for pockety slides with loading.
Snowpack
New snow depth 4 to 12 inches. Some wind drifts up to 2' deep. Moderately dense, wind affected powder. Surface snow on steeper southerly facing slopes quickly becoming damp when the sun came out.