AVALANCHES: No avalanche activity, but a few other items of note. The snow up the slate has been going strong. we were breaking a new skin track with ski pen at least a foot, up to 15+. On one small NE pocket, 32is degrees, we got one collapse, no cracking Or moving. The pocket was windloaded from this prior weeks winds. off the ridge, at least 3 cornices (relatively small portions of big cornices) had broken off presumably from this week’s winds and new snow, causing some major sloughing in all cases but no slab releases. Sloughs ran up to 400ft downslope. we also skied by cascade in the beaver slide area, where we got a other collapse near the top of the typical ski slope. Again no cracks or movement. It’s deep out there and snow was going strong from about 2pm onward.

WEATHER: Overcast at 11am and by 1pm, snowing hard (1″/hr). No to light winds.

SNOWPACK: About 8″ fresh since tuesday, on top of more than a foot from last weekends storm.

WEATHER: Overcast sky. Pluses of snowfall throughout the day and becoming continues snowfall in the afternoon. About 2″ total today. Light winds at ridgeline and now drifting snow.

SNOWPACK: The snowpack is becoming interesting again. Storm snow accumulations where around 15″ near ridgeline or at the top of Coney’s bowl. Didn’t find thicker windslab deposits and the fist hard storm snow was behaving more like a well distributed, soft, persistent slab. At the top of the bowl a quick test pit produced a CT13 SC result on the old snow interface of weak facets and ski tests where only producing cracks about 5 feet in length. No collapses or any further cracking while traveling on slope angles under 35 degrees.

On a north facing slope below treeline the snowpack structure was extremely poor. About 60cm of large fist hard facets with about 50cm of recent fist hard storm snow. Storm snow was to soft to produce propagating results in an ECT but I still wouldn’t trust that slope.

AVALANCHE OBS: At ridgeline, a good ski cut on a slope around 37 degrees produced no result. Then skied a 33 degree slope a few hundred feet away that remote triggered that same slope with the ski cut. The storm snow of the last weak failed on the old snow surface of weak facets as described above. Crown was around 1.5 feet deep and 60 feet wide. Ran a couple hundred feet down slope into lower angled terrain. This avalanche was harmless to a human but only because of the relatively small size/exposer of the slope. AS-SS-R1-D1.5-I

Take home point, no obvious sings to instability such as whomping and only a couple forced 5 foot cracks, but still a remote triggered avalanche on a slope greater then 35 degrees.

AS-SS-R1-D1.5-I Remote triggered soft slab.

AVALANCHE/SNOWPACK OBS: Many sluffs spindrift off steep terrain & cliffs, slashed a couple 35-40* small roll overs & only got one tiny slab to pop off, the rest sluff’d

SNOWPACK: Numerous (>12) collapses & shooting cracks on flats & N-NE slopes up to 30* 9,500ft to 12K failing ~30-40cm into the old NSF with the underside of the slab (can hold it in your hand) from last week embedded with facets. Ski pen 30-40cm

DATE: 20150227
LOCATION: Emmons
ELEV: 9,000-12,400′
ASPECT: SSE
WEATHER: OVC & BKN, snowing S1, light NW winds at ridge top in alpine as of 1200

AVALANCHE/SNOWPACK OBS: About 25-30cms of dense, thick storm / wind deposited snow in the alpine as of 1200. Small cracking at ridge top but no propagation. Small and thin eggshell rime crust observed above TL on low angle SSW slopes. 2 small D1 slides ran in steep E terrain below ridge top and from exposed rocks and cliff bands in past few days.

AVALANCHES:

WEATHER: Mostly cloudy with periods of S-1 and S1. Calm

SNOWPACK: Hand test: top layer had 5cm of recent snow (last 48 hours), overlying a sun crust. Below the sun crust were 5 cm of faceted grains, overlying a melt/freeze crust. Hand and pole couldn’t penetrate this melt/freeze crust.

UPLOADS:

AVALANCHES: Widespread, touchy persistent slabs on N/NE aspects BTL. Almost every rollover steeper than 35 degrees we approached today either triggered remotely or with a ski cut., about 10 slides in total. Slabs ranged from 10″ to 18″ thick, 10 to 100 feet wide, and ran up to 500 vertical feet. Failed on near surface facets. that were buried at the beginning of this late-Feb storm cycle. Most were D1, a couple D1.5’s with debris up to 5 feet. Two were remotely triggered from flat terrain. SS-AS-R1-D1/1.5-O

WEATHER: Overcast. S1 midday increased to S3 by late afternoon. Light easing to calm winds.

SNOWPACK: N/NE aspects: 12-18″ of F+ recent snow, no wind affect, over the Feb 16th facet layer (F hard), which is rotten to the ground. Very reactive interface. Widespread cracking, collapsing, and skier triggered slides.

S aspects. 4-6″ of new snow over the most recent Meltfreeze crust (Feb 24 crust), which is 2″ thick and supportive. About 2″ of mixed forms below that crust to the February 20th crust, which is knife hard to the ground. No signs of instability or sluffing on steep terrain.

UPLOADS:

AVALANCHES: 4 different slides visible from basin floor. All from recent wind loading

WEATHER: Snowy with mild winds in the tress, large gusts on ridgelines and peak visible from basin floor

SNOWPACK: Solid with no instability below treeline. Once into the tongue below M-Face…experience numerous collapses but nothing broke loose,. Turned around and skied trees

UPLOADS:

AVALANCHES:

WEATHER: temps low 20’s, cloudy obscuring any chance at valley wide obs, snowing off and on, random squalls but no consistent winds where we were

SNOWPACK: six inches new overnight, ski pen 16 inches. some sluffing on steeper pitches but only new snow moving and pitches not long enough for sluffs to sustain or entrain so I remain to slay pow again. Crusts under new snow on anything with east tilt.

UPLOADS: