Observation: Public

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

Went to Blewett on the hunch the deep persistent issues wouldn't be as big an issue here. Skinned from Tronsen Creek TH up the ski trails. Widespread breakable crust below ~4500 gave way to solid feeling snowpack with a few inches of cold, low density snow on top. Dug a quick pit at ~5100 ft at the bottom of the NE facing slide path on Diamond Head in a cold, sun sheltered spot. Below the top ~4", the snowpack was consistent density down to a crust at ~80 to 90cm from surface. Noted two interfaces at ~30 cm and 60cm that easily and cleanly popped out with shovel shears while digging the pit, however ECT resulted in no failures. The layer at ~50cm started to crack at 30 in a CT but didn't fail completely across the 30cm column. A party had dug a snowpit at the top of the slide path and skied the slope the day prior. Hunch paid off and we skied great dry powder on NE and N aspects all day. Cloud cover, wind and cooler than expected temps kept the snow pretty cool all day.

Of note the steeper, east facing, heavily treed slopes just south of the slide path had a fair amount of refrozen tree bombs/natural wet slide debris running over a previous skin track.