Date of Observation: 03/04/2021
Name: Evan Ross
Zone: Northwest Mountains
Location: Washington Gulch
Aspect: East, South East, South, South West, West
Elevation: 9,400-11,400
Weather: Good Pulse of snow in the morning, then waited most of the day for things to pick back up. Headed out in the late afternoon. Periods of heavy snowfall. Mostly calm winds with some strong gusts.
Snowpack: A couple of inches of new snow near the Washington Gulch Trailhead, and about 5 inches of new snow near the head of Washington Gulch. In the alpine there may have been a little drifting and some slab formation, otherwise where I traveled the new snow didn’t make any change. Small sluffs on steep northerly-facing slopes would be about it. I didn’t find enough snow to sluff on the crusty southerly-facing slopes.
The recently buried crust on southerly-facing slopes was a couple of inches thick. Boot pen mostly punched through the crust to about 30cm. Interestingly, most of those crusts also had percolation columns extending into moist or even dry snow below.
Sunny slopes are setting up nicely for a loose wet avalanche cycle when the sun comes out, otherwise, the new snow is mostly adding to sluffing volume on northerly-facing slopes.
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- WSW Aspect, 10,500ft.
