Date of Observation: 01/17/2016
Name: Evan Ross
Aspect: North East
Elevation: 9,400-10,200
Avalanches: Several naturel avalanches in the alpine. Fresh D2 debris could be seen below the east face of Gothic and the Spork. The White Mountain massif had at least one R1-D2 windslab on a cross loaded rib.
Weather: Mostly Cloudy. S1 snow showers obscuring the sky at times. A few down valley gusts drifting snow but mostly light winds throughout the day.
Snowpack: HS in the 90-110 range. Not a big change in snowpack structure from slopes that avalanched during the Christmas cycle and lower angle areas that didn’t avalanche. Just a weak structure all around with about 6-7″ of new storm snow from the last several days over mostly fist hard facets. boot pin to the ground. No avalanche problems found in the terrain we traveled through.
A few terrain features looked like they may have some small cross loaded windslabs.
Natural wind slab on White Mountain Massif, cross loaded southeast aspect. R1-D2.