Observation: Public

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

Toured up from Sunrise lot. Got to about 6500'. Eastern aspects had about 6 inches of fresh snow on top. Ridge tops were wind blown and compacted snow. Western aspects had variable snow with about 4 inches of wind transported snow. We dug a pit on a western aspect on a roughly 35 degree slope above the White River area. We easily found the facet-crust-facet sandwich. As we were setting up our ECT, we had a small failure at the sandwich. Compression and shovel tilt tests results actually showed failure about 15cm above the sandwich, but did not fail easily. Made some hard ski cuts on similar slope and aspect at about 5000' and did not get any movement. Skiing was good. White River is still very open with no snow bridges on the eastern side. Only one snow bridge on the western fork. At least one river crossing is required to get back to parking lot. Lots of at least day old rollerballs on the lower elevation western aspects.