Date of Observation: 04/05/2022
Name: Zach Guy
Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Skied on easterly aspects near Ohio Pass and snowmobiled up to Scarp Ridge, traveling near and below treeline.
Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: Can we call falling trees an avalanche? If so, there were several large (D2) trees that blew over, along with numerous smaller ones (D1-1.5).
Weather: Extreme wind gusts alternating with moderate lulls out of the west. Sustained flagging off of all of the high peaks and occasional periods of whiteout/blowing snow at all elevations. Intermittent periods of light graupel. Mild temps.
Snowpack: Went hunting for wind slabs, and for the most part, I couldn’t find them. Winds were so strong that blowing snow didn’t seem to be getting deposited anywhere that I traveled. I traversed below two corniced, east-facing ridgelines near treeline, the types of features that normally collect wind slabs, and the snow surface was scoured down to yesterday’s sun crust. A bit lower on the slope, I found a few thin drifts up to 3″ thick that produced mini-wind slab avalanches to ski cuts. I have more uncertainty about loading patterns, or lackthereof, in the alpine, where there was a steady stream of pluming snow off of the peaks all afternoon.
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- Flagging off of Whetstone
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- Gusts would cause periods of whiteout and blowing snow
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- Flagging off of the Ruby Range
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- I only found a few thin wind slabs like this while poking around in leeward terrain near and below treeline.
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- Numerous downed trees today
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- A slab of wind drifted pineneedles. There is extensive pinecones and pineneedles littering the snow surface below treeline now.
