Avalanches: See video and photos. Evidence of natural wet cycle below treeline in the past 24 hours or so along hwy 135/Slate River Road corridor. About a dozen wet loose slides on NE aspects, one on NW and one on E, ranging from D1 to D2 in size, and about half of them gouging to the ground. 3 wet slabs on NE aspects below treeline, D1.5 to D2 in size, failing at the ground.
Weather: Warm, scattered clouds, no precip, calm winds
Snowpack: 2″ refreeze over an unconsolidated wet snowpack. Ski pen and boot pen quickly became knee to waist deep. One pit on NE aspect showed fist hard wet/very wet grains throughout, with free water pooling at the March 6th dust/interface about a foot deep in this location.  2 collapses in flat terrain

NE aspect BTL, Happy Chutes

NE aspect BTL. Happy Chutes.

NE aspect BTL. Happy Chutes

NE aspect BTL. Whetstone.

Cracking snow between debris piles

Looking downhill at wet loose debris pile

D2 debris pile below wet slab on Gibson Ridge

East aspect BTL. Gibson Ridge

NE aspect BTL. Whetstone

NW aspect BTL. Round Mtn.

NE aspect BTL

Wet loose and wet slab. NE aspect BTL on Whetstone

Wet loose and wet slab, Gibson Ridge. NE aspect BTL

4/10. Wet slab, Gibson Ridge. NE aspect BTL

Avalanches: Several minor point releases on east and north aspects. Nothing gauged in to older snow, limited to new snow only.
Weather: In the morning cloud cover was in and out. The sun was out for much of the morning. New snow accumulations at 11500 were 10cm. Air temps were warm, just above freezing, causing snow on north facing slopes to become slightly moist even in shade by noon.
Snowpack: 10 cms of new snow over the weekend. In one location at 11500,NNE facing, 33* slope had free water make it 30 cm down from surface. At 30 cms it refroze in to an ice lens. It was still approximately 20cm above our most recent dust layer.

Ski conditions were supportive through noon with minor loose and roller activity on north aspects. East facing terrain at noon had lost its support and was very wet.

Avalanches: None.
Weather: Warm temps, calm winds, scattered to broken clouds, no precip.
Snowpack: In the afternoon, boot pen into wet grains was shin to knee deep on low angle slopes near treeline, but wet loose problem appears to be becoming unreactive. No rollerballs on steep, slushy slopes facing E, S, SE. Hand pits on NE aspect ATL showed water had reached 2-5″ deep. Surfaces were beginning to slightly refreeze at sunset.

Avalanches:
Weather: Clear sky, calm wind, thin clouds starting to build just before sundown.
Snowpack: Quick obs tour in the late afternoon. See media for specifics.

Aspect ENE, Elevation 11,200, Slope 36. Only the upper inch of the snow surface had become moist. The march 6th (lower dusty interface) continues to produce propagating test results on some slopes. ECTP 21 SP with block sliding off. Interface consisted of 4F 2mm rounding faceted particles. The grains themselves didn’t look to concerning, more concerning was the weaker structure surrounded by 1f hard snow.

IMG_1856

Aspect: SE, Elevation 11,200, Slope 25. Moist snow down to an observed depth of 60cm. First ice lens was down about 55cm. Perc columns where above this ice lens but not below. Surprisingly boot pen was only about 10cm 80% of the time.

IMG_1854

Avalanches: About a 1 foot deep windblown slab broke loose from the top of the chute and traveled around 500 feet down the slope until it slowed down and stopped. It dragged a snowboarder down the slope about 50-60 feet. He managed to stay upright and cut into a safe zone.
Weather: Bluebird day around 10am
Snowpack: A fairly deep layer of powder up top with hard packed crust underneath.

20160407_111435

Avalanches: A couple new D1 wet loose on East face of Mt. Owen ATL today.
Weather: Hot day…Temps reached 50F at 10k and 38F at 12k under calm/light winds and few clouds.
Snowpack: Solid refreeze overnight. Good corn skiing in the morning turned to sloppy mush by the p.m. Top 6″ or so hasn’t quite transitioned to mature wet grains yet; skier triggered a few rollerballs on East NTL around 11 a.m. and skier triggered widespread large rollerballs on West aspects around 2:00 p.m.