Date of Observation: 02/07/2021
Name: Evan Ross
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Mt Emmons
Aspect: South East, South
Elevation: 9,200-11,700
Weather: Partly cloudy sky, warm temps, winds increasing in the afternoon. At times snow was transporting off the peaks and NTL/ATL ridgelines, though not consistently and fetches were running lower.
Snowpack: 2/7. No obvious signs to instability observed. The upper snowpack was becoming thick with warm temps and the sun. In the afternoon the wind started to buff the snow surface and create pockets of stiffer wind board around 11,000ft. We simply used the terrain to manage the avy problems, had some good turns and didn’t go looking for unstable conditions.
2/6. Similar tour as the following tour on 2/6. We spent a bit more time investigating the snowpack structure on a ESE aspect at 10,400ft. The slope angle at this sight was about 30 degrees. HS 140cm. The 12/10 interface was easy to feel with a ski pole and identify in the pit fall. This layer of concern consisted of F hard ~2mm NSF. Facets below the crust at the 1/19 interface were not immediately identified in the pit wall. Small column tests more clearly identified this 2nd layer of concern and produced sudden results. No obvious signs to instability were observed on this tour, until a couple occasions were someone didn’t have skis on and punched deeply into the snowpack. Several large collapses resulted.