Observation: Public

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

Headed up Phantom Slide early this morning with the intention to take a peek at the North Slope of Snoqualmie Mtn, but found ridiculously bad touring conditions. In the trees, there's about an inch of fine powder on knife hard ice/concrete snow. We struggled up with ski crampons, before getting into the Phantom Slidepath proper, where conditions were marginally better for skinning. There was about 3" of sugary fine powder poorly bonded to an underlying supportive thick crust, with surface hoar in protected areas.

The wind picked up around 10 am, and was gusty but generally southerly. It immediately began carrying the fine powder and scouring exposed slopes. I'd expect for there to be some decent wind-loading by this afternoon on northerly slopes (just like the forecast suggested).

We got up to 5,400', where the thick rain crust beneath the powder was just beginning to be ski-pole penetrable, before transitioning for the descent. The descent was rough, and we skied down between poorly-covered piles of avy debris, random lumps of snow, and over a ton of ice. Set off several small dry loose sluffs on the way down, which didn't run far.

All in all, pretty poor conditions.