Date of Observation: 02/28/2023
Name: Zach Guy
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Afternoon tour. Traveled up the southeast shoulder of Gothic to 11,500′ looking for wind slab feedback, and on east and northeast aspects of Snodgrass to monitor below treeline terrain.
Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: Visibility of the surrounding terrain was very limited
Weather: Whiteout conditions mid-day with blowing snow and moderate snowfall rates. Both eased through the afternoon.
Snowpack: About 5″ or 6″ of storm snow in wind-sheltered terrain, with drifts up to 18″ as I climbed into exposed, near treeline slopes with decent-sized fetches. It was easy to trigger numerous shooting cracks while skinning across the top of small, drifted terrain features. Drifts were typically 10″ to 16″ thick soft slabs, breaking on or near the storm interface.
No signs of instability below treeline except for an isolated wind drift in an obviously drifted area. A test pit on an ENE aspect produced a hard, non-propagating failure (ECTN26) on small, rounding facets about 75 cm deep.
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- Shooting crack in on a wind drifted terrain feature near treeline on Gothic Peak.
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- Shooting crack in on a wind drifted terrain feature near treeline on Gothic Peak.
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- A test pit produced unreactive results on upper snowpack facet layers. ENE aspect BTL.
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- The only sign of instability below treeline was an obvious drifted feature near a saddle where winds had been channeling snow transport.
