Observation: NWAC Forecaster

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Weather Summary

It was raining/misting when we first got to the Pass, but transitioned to snow at road level around 8:00am. It was wet and heavy, with big flakes. We were in and out of snow showers, moderate at a few points throughout the morning. Back at the car around noon.

Avalanche Observation Comments:

Plenty of natural and human-triggered Wet Loose activity was spotted - rollerballs, pinwheels, shedding snow from rocks. Only a few small actual avalanches. I was able to push some snow on test slopes and it was stubborn but did end up sliding on the crust with enough encouragement.

Snowpack Observations

Made a trip up Kendall today to take a look at conditions before forecasting. It was a drippy one, got back to the car soaked.

Once we got away from the road and started making our way uphill, we found between 4 and 7 inches of new snow over the 2/3 interface. The depth increased with elevation and in wind-loaded terrain. While we did find some textured surfaces and fat pillows on convexities, the warm weather tempered Wind Slab activity anywhere we traveled today. Didn't dig any pits, but did a number of hand shears and found a variety of bonding - but mostly decent. In some pits, the snow was a little upside down with heavy moist snow overlaying drier snow from earlier on in the storm. Made me curious about Storm Slab potential but couldn't get one to pop on any steeper convexities today.

Our first lap was better than expected skiing, by the time we made it up for a second, the dampness had set it even more and the snow had become even heavier and more sluggish. The wet and heavy snow was really the story of the day.

Found a number of open holes out there and there are still plenty of Christmas Trees in the slide path. A good reminder that although we've had a good season, maybe not a great one in terms of snow depths. (we're currently at 70% of normal)