A couple of very large naturals in the alpine. One ran today.

Date of Observation: 03/12/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Upper Slate, traveled on easterly facing terrain to 11,600 ft.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: One very large (D3) persistent slab ran off of the east face of Peeler Peak today. Another large persistent slab ran below Scarp Ridge sometime last night or yesterday afternoon.
Spotted a handful of wind slabs that ran yesterday at higher elevations, D1 to D2, on SW to SE aspects.
A handful of small wet loose avalanches ran today near and below treeline. Observed slides on east to south aspects, sun was moving towards westerlies as my field day ended.
Weather: Mild temps, few clouds, light breeze with no transport observed all day.
Snowpack: Northwest winds affected the snow surface at all elevations here, with lots of soft sastrugi and obvious lobes of drifted slabs at all elevations. I was able to produce shooting cracks on some below treeline drifts where the slabs were thinner and softer. Near ridgetop, the slabs were meaty and dense and more stubborn. The persistent slab is about 3 to 4 feet thick here and evolving into a hard slab. Although we did not get any signs of instability on skis all day, we got one collapse while digging out a stuck sled. A quick test on a NE aspect at 11,000 ft produced propagating results on the dry spell layer after modifying the ECT into a “deep tap ECT”. No results under normal loading steps (ECTX). The layer is 4F- hard, 1mm in size under a 115 cm slab up to 1F hard.