Observation: Public

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

I travelled from White Pass towards Twin Peaks just to poke around a bit. Plans to void East facing slopes as they tend to be wind loaded currently and stay on terrain >30 degrees as I was traveling solo. I was not planning on skiing the West Twin, but interested on what the S, SW face was doing with the change in recent conditions from spring like back to winter. I was surprised to find a very dense layer (ice) my saw had a hard time penetrating that started about 20cm down to ~55cm went back to Pencil hardness then to 4F at 70 working its way back to 1F and Pencil at 90cm to the base. The top 20cm was sublime powder on the S/SW facing slopes. N and NW facing was windblown powder on icy crust. It seemed like a persistent slab that will heal with time as the top of the weak layer seemed to be sintering. Overall, I felt it to be a poor structured snowpack (1 difference at the weakness, grain size above was much smaller than grains below). The slab was extremely dense and low risk of triggering (6 taps from the shoulder), but if it went I felt it would be pretty destructive given its weight, density, and slab structure. 20 degree slope, overcast conditions, very light breeze.

Low angled SE and S facing was the ticket for great turns. Treed N and NW facing was decent, but the crust was much more shallow.