Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>The increasing winds were the only concern I observed today. It will be interesting to see how the thin weak snowpack handles the approaching storms. In many locations at higher elevations the snowpack is basically faceted snow from top to bottom with little in the way of a slab.</p>
Not a big change in the snow coverage from a week ago, still lots of rocky terrain and hazards showing.
If you really go out of your way and stomp around hard enough a few isolated old one finger hard wind slabs that fail on the weak faceted snow can be found. I would not see these as a big threat right now due to the difficulty in traveling around.
Snowpack
With the overall thin snow cover, there is a variety of snow conditions out there right now. Very loose faceted surface snow, wind crust and melt freeze crust. The riding and turning conditions are quite limited and challenging. The long dry spell has taken it's toll on the snowpack, there is little in the way of supportable snow unless you find a few patches of hard wind slab.