Observation: Public

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

Heavily saturated snow in the valley, with snow gradually becoming good as I gained elevation, in the valley the breakable rain crust was about 6 inches deep with the supportable crust approx 18inches deep. I could get small rollerballs to go as I gained elevation but they never got above softball size. Up higher the breakable crust was about a foot deep as shown in my photo and was somewhat reactive and smaller slabs could slide if I made cuts underneath it, like on acute kick turns I could get 6 foot chunks of slab to slide from above. Nothing propagated, this was at about 5200ft on e/ne aspects approaching bryants couloir (ne). Snow was steadily falling, I did a couple aggressive ski cuts on the upper bowl before the line becomes a couloir proper and could not get any cracking or propagation. Skiing down was excellent consistency until the valley floor. I had to manage sluff in the couloir but noticed no signs of instability.