Quick report
- Cracking
- specific
Started from Yodelin parking around 9 to Lake Valhalla. Snow was light and deep - we were sinking a good two feet breaking a skintrack the entire time. Couldn’t see any evidence of slides due to poor visibility and moderately hard snowfall through the morning. Easterly winds across lake Valhalla but the wind wasn’t noticeable in the trees. Skinned to the saddle west of the lake at 5300'. We noticed a weak layer about 5-6” down on the skin track that easily shed the dry, mostly unconsolidated snow atop it. Started up the broad southern ridge to the peak south of the saddle, but very quickly remote triggered this weak layer, releasing mostly-unconsolidated, minilanches off convex rolls) on the slope above us. Turned around and did laps on lower angle terrain instead. Snowfall abruptly stopped at 12:30, and visibility dramatically increased. Blue sky even poked out a bit. We then noticed that these convex-roll slides were a dime a dozen and easily started naturally; we got the understanding that any slope over 30-35 degrees would shed the upper 5-6” of snow on this north aspect. From the lake, we could fully see the debris from a couple D1-2 avalanches off W/SW face of Lichtenberg. On the return journey, we traversed back across the lake and under Lichtenberg to get a more direct fall line through the trees below to head out, and noticed another D1 slab avalanche off Lichtenberg's SW side that covered a skin track put there this morning. Skied down through the trees and found cascade concrete waiting for us near the bottom.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1.5
- Aspect
- SW
- Elevation
- 5500 ft
Lot of snow releasing off a weak layer buried 2-6" down, at least on the north aspect we were on. Large slides off of Lichtenberg.