Quick report
We toured out beyond Incline Peak today, looking for views of the area to see signs of any natural avalanches from the last storm cycle and to travel through some lower traffic areas for a better opportunity to trigger a snowpack collapse. We saw no recent avalanches and triggered no collapses on our tour today. Indicators of instability were limited to snowpit data on our tour today. We saw enough concern in our snowpit tests that we opted for sub 30 degree terrain. We figured in the low chance scenario that we triggered an avalanche, it would be much bigger than we wanted to be a part of.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 41
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- none
- Rain Elevation
- 9,500
- Recent Snowfall
- 10
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Warm, overcast, balmy condtions with no wind, even on the ridgetops.
Snowpack
We choose a relatively shallow area to dig thinking that this would be a more likely area to trigger an isolated avalanche under the current conditions. Indicators of instability today were limited to ECTP results on the Jan 2 PWL and PST results on the depth hoar layer. Jan 2 surface hoar showed some rounding at this location but was still reactive in snowpit tests.
Surface wet snow was forming on the E-SE aspects we traveled up to at least 9,700'. Wind slabs along ridgetop areas were unreactive.