Observation: Public

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

We left the maintenance lot at just before 8am and traveled up the Phantom ascent to the Slot. The way up was a horror show of refrozen snow, tree bombs, ice crust, refrozen tracks constantly wiping out the skin track and sun crust. There was a stiff wind from the south above treeline, but very little in the way of wind transport because most of the snow was locked in on the south facing slopes from the sun crust. Almost no snow was drifting into the existing skin track from the previous day. Ski crampons were pretty much mandatory for the ascent.

The Slot skied really well, with a mix of spindrift, and firm chalky base. Only a bit of sluff was moving around from existing snow, and no evidence of any real wind slab buildup, which was our major concern for the day. The snow near the bottom was slightly wind affected, but still skied great, and was not slabby. There was debris from something that probably came down the end of last week at the very bottom below the exit to the Crooked. It was firm icy debris, so we steered away from it.

We exited via Snow Lake to avoid going back down the Phantom trees. The Snow Lake basin held great snow, with excellent stability on the steeper aspects.