Date of Observation: 03/22/2021
Name: Zach Guy
Zone: Northwest Mountains
Location: Lower Slate
Aspect: North East, East
Elevation: 9,000 to 11,400′
Avalanches: A few small loose avalanches ran today on higher elevation terrain in the Ruby Range from solar warming (dry and wet loose).
Weather: Mostly sunny mid-morning with clouds building midday. A few very light snow showers without any accumulating snow. Light northwest winds.
Snowpack: Tested the flanks of a few bed surfaces near and below treeline to see how they were holding up after the last round of snowfall (About 3″ to 6″ of settled storm snow here). A few ski cuts and column tests on paths that ran in mid-February did not produce any unstable results. In general, the structure is poor (1.5 mm, fist hard facets are buried about 40 cm), but it seems there’s not quite enough slab here to be reactive yet. The same structure would be quite a bit scarier if the slab was denser or thicker from wind effects. There are a few thin crusts near the surface on more easterly tilts adding some integrity to the equation as well.
Snow surfaces got slightly moist today on easterly and even some northeast tilts.
Photos:
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- Quick pit along the flank of a path that slid in mid February.
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- Yesterday’s skier triggered slide, and some small wet loose that ran today (on the left side of the photo)
