Weather and Avalanche Log for Wed Mar 1, 2023
Winds were 20-35 from the SW before dropping off late Tuesday night
Winds were 20-35 from the SW before dropping off late Tuesday night
A rider triggered an avalanche on a small slope in the Cabin Creek area.
A rider triggered an avalanche on a small slope in the Cabin Creek area. Photo: K Bye
A rider triggered an avalanche on a small slope in the Cabin Creek area. Photo: K Bye
We rode to Ski Hill and dug. HS was 230cm and the top 60 cm was from last week. the top 25 cm was F hardness powder. No wind when we were there. We got an ECTX. We then rode to the old weather station at 8700' and had HS 210 cm. Same layering but got ECTP20 about 65 cm down at the interface of the old snow surface and this weeks deposit. I looked with a hand lens and did not find facets, just a density change. But with the top foot being F powder it would not take much to build drifts that would slide.
We also saw one small slide on the drive on a roadcut a Fawn Pass that looked to be 1.5' deep and 50' wide, soft slab.
Fortunately the goal on Sunday was exercise more than skiing. Ellis had been ravaged by the winds, at least the top 400-500 feet. We rested at the top and skied out our relatively safe route through the trees. There was a band of snow where the skiing was ok and then we hit the thaw elevation where snow skiing felt more like water skiing. No signs of snow instability and I would not have tempted the wind slabs in the burn.
From Obs, "On Friday I noticed “Provo’s run” (large path near overlook mtn) slid from the top which appeared to have slid due to the heavy wind loading. The slid looked to be about 24” deep and ran full path . So today I checked out the west facing walls close the hyalite lake and around 9500’ the upper sections of these slid paths were wind effected and unstable, and I did not ride them
I dug a pit around 9500’ on the west facing wall near the lake and got unstable results. ECTP 11 which propagated below the recent wind load from last week.
the snow pack is 240 cm deep and is nice and consolidated without any major layers on several of the pits I dug at several elevations on these upper elevation"