Date of Observation: 03/03/2021
Name: Evan Ross Zach Kinler
Zone: Northwest Mountains
Location: Angle Pass
Aspect: North East, East, South East, South
Elevation: 9,700-12,000
Avalanches: Several loose wet avalanches. A few old ones and some that ran today. Not widespread and mostly D1 in size with a couple D1.5s. SE, S, SW aspects had the majority of the activity.
Weather: A light breeze at 12,000ft, otherwise no winds. Hot… my face hurts.
Snowpack: We didn’t end up having to manage any wet avalanche concerns. Between 10am and 12:30pm we traveled on south and southeast slopes up to 11,800. The upper 3 to 5cm of the snowpack was wet, while the snow below remained dry. By the time we traveled back through similar terrain the surfaces were starting to crust due to lower sun angles and/or shading.
We mostly traveled on E and NE facing slopes in the afternoon. Some east facing slopes had a crust on them in the afternoon, but were mainly traveling through soft cold snow. Where that snow was soft and cold the upper snowpack was weak NSF, or firmer wind effected snow surfaces.
The snowpack we traveled on was otherwise deep and we didn’t encounter much of a concern on the persistent slab avalanche front.
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- SW, 10,100ft. Couple small loose wet avalanches from previous day.
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- Middle Anthracite Creek
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- Mineral Point at about 1:30pm.
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- SE, ATL, around 2pm.
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- SE, 10,400ft. Small Loose Wet.
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- Several Loose Wet Avalanches off Cascade.
