Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Cracking, Collapsing, Poor Snowpack Structure
Low angle mellow tour around Strawberry ridge today, taking stock of conditions. Similar to what everyone is reporting, bad snow pack with a thick layer of sugary snow faucets about a foot or two below the surface around 9k feet. ECT showed full propagation and clean shear at that weak layer. 10 taps wrist, 6 from the elbow till cracking occurred. Weak layer was fist hardness with upper layers harder. Really bad wind loading as well, obvious signs of wind and heavy loading at the ridge line. All in all really spooky conditions right now, we stayed on sub 30 degree slopes and still was freaky to have snow collapsing constantly with visible and audible cracking. Wouldn't touch anything over 30 degrees until it mellows out.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Really bad sugary snow layer about a foot down in the snow pack. Could feel the snow collapsing and heard audible collapses propagate. Northern aspects were particularly bad but issue was widespread. </p>