Zone: Northwest Mountains
Location: Pittsburg
Date of Observation: 12/12/2020
Name: Joey Carpenter
Subject: Pittsburg
Aspect: North East
Elevation: 9250-10.5k
Avalanches:
Remote trigger (skinning), unintentional, R1D1, 10k, NE, 37 degrees, 45cm storm slab, 40′ wide, 50 vert, ran on November facets (35cm to ground, 1.5-2mm). Cracking extended onto 34-35 degree slopes 30′ to either side of the crown. M/f crust here has deteriorated almost entirely.
Remote trigger (skinning), intentional, R1D.5, 9700k, NE, 36 degrees, 45cm storm slab. 25 ft wide, 30 vert, Nov facets. The 60-80ft skiers left of this slide ran naturally sometime yesterday afternoon.
Skier trigger, R1.5D1.5, 10k, 35 degrees, 45cm storm slab (estimate), ran 60-70 vert, intentional, This slide had the most energy of anything we saw today w/ a ski cut at a convex roll.
At least 2-3 naturals BTL that ran yesterday of similar characteristics to slides described above. Small in overall size entraining only snow from the last 36 hours.
Weather: Overcast skies all day, temps started in single digits and rose to the high teens. No wind or transport. S-1 snowfall throughout the day with about 2″ accumlation from 8a-230p.
Snowpack: Snowpack was very sensitive today. Cracking at every step breaking trail through ~45cm of low density storm snow sitting on top of 35cm of 1.5-2mm facets to the ground. You could still dig to the MF crust from before the Turkey week storm but it was mostly rotted out and becoming part of the facet mess. Shooting cracks, slumping and small avalanches were easily triggered on any slope tipping past 32-33 degrees.
Photos:
