Observation: Public

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

Skied Eldorado Peak on Friday, 2022-04-15. In the morning we observed supportable frozen crust near treeline on the south-facing slope we were on. The sun came out in full force and quickly thawed the crust, revealing mostly fresh soft snow beneath. During the whole morning we had mixed sun with clouds which kept the snow in relatively good shape on the way up. Snow on the east ridge of Eldorado was moderately wind affected, wind direction appeared to be NE. We didn't run into any wind slabs but we haven't tried to find them and kept to the windward side of the ridge. The top of Eldorado, where the knife edge is in the summer, was a flattish ridge with good soft styrofoam snow. No protection was needed. Clouds started rolling in during early afternoon, it got cold, and started snowing lightly. Below 7000 ft, sun earlier in the day made the fresh snow into sticky mashed potatoes and the cold afternoon formed an unsupportable crust on top which made for horrible skiing. The crust was strong enough to catch an edge and then disintegrated and dumped the ski into mashed potatoes. Ugh.

We saw old debris from wet loose avalanches but we didn't see any avalanches nor any signs of instability. The morning sun wasn't enough to make wet loose a problem.