Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Winds were blowing in the moderate range today. The new snow is pretty dense and the winds were not moving this snow around today. Yesterday was a different story. Reed reported strong winds at mid elevations. So strong that he had to lean into the wind to keep from falling over. Vis was limited today, but we had the occasional glance at North and East facing terrain which appeared to be freshly loaded. </p>
Photo 1: Hand shear on a west facing slope on the top of Julie's. The storm snow was pretty cohesive here and you can see the block that pulled out. Photo 2: Underneath this block was a thin sun crust that formed on Tuesday. This photo shows the thickness of this crust. I did not find any faceted snow above or below this crust. Photo 3: You can see the amount of Graupel in the surface snow on top of my skis.
Photo 4: Serious rime forming at mid and upper elevations. Photo 5: Clouds were socked in for most of the day. Photo 6: Snow stake is disappearing. 90 inch base?
If we don't get the forecasted amounts of snow I think tomorrow's danger will be moderate with pockets of considerable in the wind zone.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>The new snow is somewhat variable depending on aspect/elevation/exposure. The snow is certainly dense. Some hand shears would pull out nice cohesive blocks, and others would crumble. I found cohesive, slabby storm snow in more open and exposed areas. Places where the snowfall was more wind driven. In more sheltered areas the new snow was less cohesive and would fall apart more easily. We did not experience any cracking in the storm snow as we traveled today. I would expect any storm slab problems to settle quickly, but I would still have my guard up if skiing steep terrain tomorrow. </p>
Five inches of new snow on the board in Gold Basin. At the trailhead there was about an inch. I think the rain/snow line was right at the winter TH. Something to keep in mind if you are planning to ski from the Trans La Sal TH. It could have rained there. The new snow is dense, supportable, fast, and really fun skiing.