Murray Moraines

Cornice failure cleaning out hanging slopes on the head wall.

Went for a quick tour up Murray Creek today. Some notable older avalanches from the last cycle (2-2.5). Chose a location on the skier’s left or lookers right in the basin and did a cursory dig since I hadn’t been in the land of K for some time. Snowpack generally is right side or has an positive resistance change from top down. 10cm of low density fluff or Fist resistance. Gradually the subsequent layers got progressively more resistant to hand. Did 2 extended column tests and got no results in both tests. Decent ski quality today and then once back to the car, we noticed a respectable powder cloud that was already dissipating. I’ll guess a cornice failure that cleaned out the hanging snow slopes on Mt. Murray. Hard to tell from the distance we were at but had to have been at least 1.5-2.0. Cornices are plump and the colder temps probably made them brittle.