Observation: Public

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

We traveled through a significant portion of the Eastern Crytal backcountry today skiing Bullion Peak NE Face, Crown Point West Face and Pick Handle Ridge. We found the 11/17 rain crust (MFcr) down 15-25 cm and averaging 18-20cm in depth. The new snow is bonding quite well to the 11/17 MFcr and while this crust made setting new ski tracks difficult the new snow never sluffed cleanly off of it. The newer snow above the 11/17 MFcr lacks cohesion and at this point has very little structure. Wind redistributed snow even at ridge top was limited and even in typically heavily wind-affected areas like the ridge from Bullion peak to Crown Point, we observed less wind affected snow than is typical for this area. (15ft maximum down the leeward slope). Small slope tests in this wind redistributed snow showed minimal cracking and we couldn't get a crack to propagate beyond our ski tips. We skied several slopes over 40 degrees with no results. HS 85-115.