Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 12/25/2019
Name: Evan Ross
Subject: Blower And Some Wind
Aspect: North East
Elevation: 9,000ft to 11,400ft
Weather: Obscured to mostly cloudy. Several good snow squalls moving through, otherwise mostly S1 to S-1 light snowfall through the day. Moderate WSW winds drifting the new snow.
Snowpack: Definitely wow type blower out there. The new snow was very light and had no cohesion. 6″ new at 10,000ft at 11am. Another 1 to 2″ had accumulated by 3pm. Sluffing in steep protected terrain gouged into some of the old weak faceted snow below. Still, sluffs were small in size in this terrain. Persistent Slab structure continues to grow less of a concern, but there were still a few slopes below treeline that changed how I traveled through them. Those specific slopes needed an HS of about 120cm or more and to have not previously avalanched this season.
Didn’t travel on any real exposed section of ridge near treeline. The new snow was drifting onto the lee sides of the ridge. Where we skied off the ridge there was a few extra inches of wind-loaded snow, but still very soft and lacked a slab. At times when the visibility increased, much better active wind-loading could be seen in the alpine.
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