Washington Gulch and Mount Baldy

Moderate snowfall and increasing westerly winds arrived a few hours earlier than I expected, making for challenging travel at upper elevations with low visibility.  Settled snow totals so far this week were 8 inches at 2 pm.  I did not encounter any issues with the storm snow in sheltered areas, but shooting cracks began to appear in the early afternoon.  I suspect you could have easily triggered shallow slabs on drifted terrain before the day ended.

On my ascent, cracking on drifted features was only at a ski length. 2 hours later on my descent I was able to get cracks to shoot 30 feet in shallow drifts.

By 2pm, 4 inches of snow accumulated near the treeline, with storm totals this week (snow above persistent weak layers and sun crusts) at 8 inches.  The wind quickly moved the new snow to leeward terrain features, forming soft slabs up to a foot thick directly below ridglines but generally only 8 inches deep.  The drifted features I walked by had old surfaces of thick sun crusts or stiff windboard; cracking was related to the storm snow, although I suspect very sensitive conditions where drifts form on faceted surfaces.

I poked some quick holes on southeast slopes near 11,700 feet and found crusts 4 to 5 inches thick with ice columns to the ground.  The total depth of these features was about 70cm.  Crusts on southeast, south, and southwest slopes to 11,800 feet in this area are unlikely to collapse even with a large load.  Developing avalanche issues will involve just the storm snow with little chance of old snow entrainment.