Observation: Public

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

We observed wind loading throughout the entire area. Dug an East-facing hand pit at 4800 feet and found a hard, supportive, buried crust at about 10 inches down (depth varied greatly depending on wind loading) with right side up snow above the buried curst until you got to the uppermost layer of the snowpack which differed. At the uppermost layer, we found ~3 inches of denser snow that was just starting to become cohesive. We decided to bail at that point and skied an East-facing slope off the ridge with no slides observed.