Cinnamon

Date of Observation: 12/18/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Upper Slate to Paradise Divide and Cinnamon Mtn, traveling mostly on southerly aspects and ridgelines.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Nothing new in this area since my visit to Baldy two days ago, except for the Augusta slide reported by Kinler. New vantage of more crowns from last week’s winds and older.
Weather: Partly cloudy, light to moderate southwest winds, no snow transport.
Snowpack: Snow surfaces are faceted and weak below treeline, with thin sun crusts in the upper few inches on sunbaked slopes. Where recent drifting overlaps with these layers, I easily triggered shooting cracks and collapses up to 6″ deep. These were harmless in size and fairly isolated, but a good indicator of how the current surface will be a problem with future loading. Above treeline, the snow surface is heavily worked by winds, ranging from hard sastrugi to hard wind board to hard wind slab that produce no signs of instability. I did not experience any collapses or signs of instability on basal weak layers either.