Observation: Public

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

I walked up to about 3200ft where I could begin skinning. From there skinning was easy (like Mountain Loop easy), and I continued up in the trees, avoiding the major gullies (avalanche paths). I took the trees as I high as I could go into the cirque topping out at 5100' a few hundred feet below the cliff bands.

About 5cm of snow had fallen over the 3cm melt freeze crust and both were present everywhere I travelled, making the surface more forgiveable. The new snow also insulated the crust, so the crust was still moist and not completely hard yet. Up to about 4500ft you could punch through it on feet, although everywhere it was supportable on skis. Below 3300ft the new snow was melting rapidly at the end of the day. Higher up it stayed dry on treeless northerly slopes, but got damp and rollerballed on sunny slopes. I dug a pit on a NW aspect at 5000ft in one of the few areas where the 5cm of snow was wind drifted into 21cm but it was still bonded well to the underlying crust and had no distinct failure planes. Winds were calm where I was, although there was light flagging off the peak. The new snow was mostly evenly distributed except on and near ridgelines in the ATL.

I saw numerous avalanches from Jan 11-12, although they all started in steep cliffy areas where I couldn't see the initial failure. A couple loose wet D2 avalanches were visible on steep N terrain off one of the subridges, and one D3 originated off one of the large west facing ice gullies north of Sloan, carving out a path through the drainage as it ran 1300 vertical feet through the gully to below treeline terrain- and right next to the summer trail!