Date of Observation: 12/04/2022
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: 9600ft-10800, on SE-ENE aspects. Stayed on slopes in mid 20°s to low 30°s steepness in very isolated spots with no overhead danger.
Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: Despite incredible whumpfing all day long, many of which rippled through snow hundreds of feet away from us, we saw no avalanches that haven’t already been reported here. We did trigger shooting cracks extending as much as 50 ft long.
Weather: Intermittently overcast, light wind at ~11k ridgeline, eventually light snow in late afternoon. Temps were high 20s-low 30s
Snowpack: Performed two ECT tests at sites at BTL and NTL elevations, roughly ENE facing. Season snow totals in both locations were near 1 meter. Storm slab from the past few days was about 45 cm and quickly transitioned from Fist hardness in the top 5 cm to 4F, to 1F in the bottom ~15 cm of this new snow. Below were a few decomposing sun crusts that ranged from 1F- to almost not present (Fist hard) at our upper pit. Below those were 2-3 mm sized facets all the way to the ground; this layer was ~30 cm in depth, and Fist hard.
Lower Pit Results: ECTP 3, Q1/Sudden Collapse @ 23 cm (within basal facets); after more loading, we got: ECTN 14, Q1 @ 35 cm (storm snow-old snow interface)
Upper Pit Results: We prepped and saw that the extensive whumpfing had already collapsed the same layers we saw shear in our lower pit, which unsurprisingly gave us a false stable result of ECT X, but still saw the same problematic structure.
Beyond attempting to nerd out, the snowpack made for perfectly supportive hippy wiggles.