Observation: Public

Observation Details

Observed Avalanches

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

The new snow from this most recent storm cycle sits on top of a fairly moist layer below. It is very supportable while skinning/ riding, but ski pole and boot penetration was deep (up to 2ft in some places). The new snow was still very dry this morning on NE-N-NW aspects. On solar aspects that we traveled on the new snow was slightly more moist and dense (likely from sun breaks and warming temps in the previous days), but we did not encounter any crusts at the surface.
Sky cover ranged from mostly cloudy to totally overcast with light-moderate snow showers. Mostly calm winds (the windiest place we encountered today was the Heather Meadows parking lot).
We saw a few natural D1 wet and dry loose avalanches this morning, but no new avalanche activity while we were out today.
There were signs of wind effected snow above 5,000ft. Hand shear tests broke within the new snow layers 8-12” below the surface with moderate force. The top 6-8” of snow was pretty unconsolidated, and below that more consolidated and cohesive. The tests we performed did not break on a crust and appeared to be stubborn. We did not observe any wind slab releases.
By the afternoon there was a slight warm up occurring and snow on all aspects was more moist and denser than the morning. Still great riding conditions out there!