Quick report
- Aspect
- North
- Red Flags
- Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 2896 m
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Upper back bowls of Mill B are always a suspect place for me with lingering deep slab instabilities; they are high and cold, rocky with lots of rollovers, wind scouring, etc. Used the large slide in yer crazy and the bowl lookers left of it as a safe route, but dug a quick pit on the lower flank of the slide after crossing a portion of it and feeling things to be quite hollow with pole plants. Found the new February slab to only be about 2 feet deep, thinner than elsewhere. Old faceted snow below that was strengthening, now mostly finger hardness, with only stubborn dirty shears. However, continued pounding on the shovel beyond the standard 30 steps for a CT/ECT, brought the whole column out to the ground on large depth hoar. Also, snow around rock bands in the areas that have slid is a foot of facets over rock, and would not be surprised to see a repeater there. I don't think Thursdays storm will enough load to affect deeper buried week layers, or even much on the surface (see above about crust/facet sandwhiches), but the weekend's may. Moderate tomorrow seems likely, rising through the weekend.</p>
Photos of the large depth hoar.
Snowpack
Soft settled snow on N facing above approximately 9200', crusted elsewhere. On N facing between approximately 8,000 and 9,200 there is a thin crust from the greenhousing earlier this week, with small facets under the crust. Would imagine the same structure may exist on some E facing slopes as well. Although I wouldn't expect it to be active with the first storm, could get some slides failing on it if we get the forecasted weight from the weekend storm. The rain and warm temps have taken their toll on the lower Mill B trail, which looks like late April or early May. The ski out is as fun as ever.