Date of Observation: 01/27/2017
Name: Geoff Unger and Anne St Clair
Aspect: East, South East, South, West
Elevation: 9,250’ to 11,300′
Avalanches:
Weather: Few clouds and light winds out of the North. High winds at ridge crest should have been visible from just about anywhere in the valley today. There was also a moderate inversion today. Touring up higher made digging in the snow bearable.
Snowpack: One crew toured up about an hour into Red Lady Glades and practiced snow profiles in one site. The other group toured up Red Coon Glades and did a series of observations on different aspects. CT Results revealed planar failures down 40-53cm on the 1/19 SH Layer or a Near Crust Facet Layer depending on aspect. Failure was also observed on a mid-storm layer down 26cm, which was also found in tilt tests. The failure there was on small preserved stellar and DF, but there was not a cohesive slab above the failure.
Propagation tests showed either ECTN or X on our layer of concern and PSTs went 68/100 End and 95/100 End down 53cm on the 1/19 Crust Facet Combo
Up higher in Red Coon Glades we had some subtle but repeatable whumphing. The first we’ve heard after this last round of storms. From looking at the grains and performing all the tests our results would seem to confirm the avalanche bulletin from this morning. As such we kept our terrain choices conservative(