Backcountry conditions
Travel Advisory:
20 cm. of low density snow has fallen during the past several days. Mountain top winds have been moderate to strong at times, resulting in some transport of the storm snow. Some slopes at tree-line are approaching the threshold for avalanche activity, but below tree-line elevations still do not have much of a snowpack. In the alpine, glaciers and permanent snow slopes have more coverage, but other slopes still have widespread rock anchors visible. Travel with caution as the new snow may be barely covering numerous underlying hazards.
Avalanche Activity:
In the alpine terrain, the storm snow has formed pockets of soft slab that were observed to be reactive to the weight of a person yesterday. The debris has been unconsolidated, with little in the way of destructive potential.
Snowpack:
The storm snow is sitting on a variety of old surfaces - windslab, sustrugi and in some places the December 6th crust. In the upper 50 cm of the snowpack you may find two pencil density windslabs that are both sitting on softer layers. Facetted layers above and below the Dec 6 crust are also very weak. Compression tests are producing shears below the windslabs and also above the crust. In the coming weeks when we finally begin to see more of a normal snowfall pattern and these layers get more of a load, deeper slabs releases could be a possibility.
Flute Backside. December 23, 2008
Ton's of stuff poking through still. Rocks, creeks, branches.
Base:
Top: 110cm
Bottom: 80cm
Windslabs at 20cm and faceted layers observed at 50cm with 10cm raincrust, and more facets under.
Compression tests: moderate on 20cm and 50cm
Shear: easy at 50cm above crust
Weather:
Cloud cover will increase throughout the day today as a weak system arrives onshore bringing snow flurries tonight and tomorrow morning. Another slightly stronger system is forecast to arrive onshore tomorrow evening. Cnt?d cool and unstable weather on Thursday with another stronger system forecast for Friday and Saturday with more seasonable temperatures.
20 cm. of low density snow has fallen during the past several days. Mountain top winds have been moderate to strong at times, resulting in some transport of the storm snow. Some slopes at tree-line are approaching the threshold for avalanche activity, but below tree-line elevations still do not have much of a snowpack. In the alpine, glaciers and permanent snow slopes have more coverage, but other slopes still have widespread rock anchors visible. Travel with caution as the new snow may be barely covering numerous underlying hazards.
Avalanche Activity:
In the alpine terrain, the storm snow has formed pockets of soft slab that were observed to be reactive to the weight of a person yesterday. The debris has been unconsolidated, with little in the way of destructive potential.
Snowpack:
The storm snow is sitting on a variety of old surfaces - windslab, sustrugi and in some places the December 6th crust. In the upper 50 cm of the snowpack you may find two pencil density windslabs that are both sitting on softer layers. Facetted layers above and below the Dec 6 crust are also very weak. Compression tests are producing shears below the windslabs and also above the crust. In the coming weeks when we finally begin to see more of a normal snowfall pattern and these layers get more of a load, deeper slabs releases could be a possibility.
Flute Backside. December 23, 2008
Ton's of stuff poking through still. Rocks, creeks, branches.
Base:
Top: 110cm
Bottom: 80cm
Windslabs at 20cm and faceted layers observed at 50cm with 10cm raincrust, and more facets under.
Compression tests: moderate on 20cm and 50cm
Shear: easy at 50cm above crust
Weather:
Cloud cover will increase throughout the day today as a weak system arrives onshore bringing snow flurries tonight and tomorrow morning. Another slightly stronger system is forecast to arrive onshore tomorrow evening. Cnt?d cool and unstable weather on Thursday with another stronger system forecast for Friday and Saturday with more seasonable temperatures.
