Eddies

Route: Eddies to 2300' and down the west aspect Signs of Instability: Many recent D1-2 slab avalanches from during/the end of the March 19-20 storm, on a variety of aspects and both near ridgeline or midslope (1500' - 3000') - see photos. Some of these crowns were several hundred feet wide, but they all looked quite shallow/with small debris piles. Additionally, we experienced just one collapse at a spot where ski pole probing easily revealed 10cm of well developed facets from February sitting on a stout crust, down 2 feet from the surface. No other collapses for us today despite breaking trail up the standard uptrack, and ski pole probing along the route didn't find this concerning loose facet/crust structure elsewhere today except for down in the flats by the parking lot. We dug a pit at the collapse location, and especially given the unstable test results, we feel fortunate that these pockets of well developed facets may be somewhat isolated on the pass! Weather: Temps in the teens, generally calm, and a clearing trend to few high clouds by mid-afternoon. You can feel the sun these days! Snow Surface: 12" of light new snow from the March 19-20 storm, which came in without much wind to our high point. Old tracks from last weekend were still quite visible, and generally the early February crust could be found 2' down on the lower part of Eddies. Snowpack: See photos for pit structure discussed above, which doesn't seem to be representative of much of Eddies to treeline, but it may be a layer responsible for some of the recent slab avalanche activity in the region. The 12" of new snow from the past few days sat on loose, faceting snow that fell on March 6/7. An ECT did not propagate for us at that new/old interface, but the slab was still quite soft in the top foot. The ECT did propagate at just 12 taps, down 50cm at the top of the layer of very loose 1mm facets sitting on the stout early February crust.

Quick report