Searching for the Persistent Slab

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/05/2016
Name: Dustin Eldridge
Subject: Searching for the Persistent Slab
Aspect: North, North East, South, South West, West, North West
Elevation: 9,200-9,800

Avalanches:
Weather: Calm and partly cloudy. Relatively warm due to the cloud cover.
Snowpack: The snowpack in this area appears to have lost a lot of strength. In the vast majority of places, the slab from the Xmas storm has faceted into 10-20 cm slab that is Fist hardness. This slab sits upon either fully developed depth hoar on northerly and shaded aspects, the ground on solar aspects, and crust/facet combos on steeper solar slopes that held snow prior to this storm. HS averages around 70 cm. Some isolated areas carry a thick 1F slab, these are isolated to areas that were heavily loaded from the Xmas storm. Snow surfaces are weak across the compass with lots of near surface faceting, pockets of surface hoar, and a thin 2-3 cm crust on steeper south facing slopes.