Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
Started from paradise at 10:30am with sunshine and no wind, warm temps at parking lot. The skies turned overcast by afternoon. The conditions were variable with widespread wind effect from last night’s W/SW winds. Below treeline there is less wind effect with a few inches of moist new snow on top of a thin, unsupportive crust. Wind scouring and loading became more apparent the higher I went. Right below and above pan face there were thick, dense wind deposits that would crack and flake off when stomped on, but were otherwise unreactive. Pan face itself had a few inches of wind compacted snow on top of a slick crust, making for tricky skinning conditions. Turned around at ~7500’ because the snow quality was uninspiring; there were patches of almost bare ice on the ridge along Mcclure rock. Ski quality overall was punchy with occasional good turns in sheltered spots.
Avalanche
Observed debris from a large D3+ avalanche on the upper nisqually, probably from the rain event a few days ago