4-6’’ wind slabs cracking on test slopes on W aspects at upper elevations today
Toured up around Blackmore and s cottonwood. Found an extremely reactive windslab in the afternoon. It was thin, but easily triggered and would propagate about the width of each terrain feature (20-50ft). Each slab ran the length of the slope (150-200 ft).
Toured up around Blackmore and s cottonwood. Found an extremely reactive windslab in the afternoon. Photo: J Alford
Toured up around Blackmore and s cottonwood. Found an extremely reactive windslab in the afternoon. Photo: J Alford
Sledded up storm castle. Spent the majority of the day skinning and skiing NE to NW aspects. Found debris from multiple R1-D1 wind slabs from earlier this week. Found widespread but inconsistent wind slabs (2"- 6" thick) at elevations 6700' to 8400'. Throughout the day cracking and collapsing was noticed multiple times on areas of stiffer snow. Snow quality changed dramatically from powder turns to thick wind crust with no visual surface difference.
Recent snowpits attached from mid elevation E, and SE aspects near Cooke City.
Of note, it appears that the Feb. 3 dust layer, perhaps has become weaker/ more faceted with the recent below 0F temps of the last 4 days. Will continue to monitor this layer of concern as the weekend storm progresses.
We rode into the Taylor Fork on Feb 13, down into the bottom of Sunlight Basin, across Carrot Basin and to the Wilderness Boundary. We saw four persistent slab avalanches that likely broke last weekend or at the beginning of the week. All appeared to be snowmobiler-triggered R1-2, D1.5-2 avalanches at broke of the January layer of near-surface facets and surface hoar. Additionally, we saw one wind slab avalanche (R1, D1) in Sunlight Basin. This slide was fresh from this morning or yesterday. Photo: GNFAC
We rode into the Taylor Fork on Feb 13, We saw four persistent slab avalanches that likely broke last weekend or at the beginning of the week. All appeared to be snowmobiler-triggered R1-2, D1.5-2 avalanches at broke of the January layer of near-surface facets and surface hoar. Photo: GNFAC
We rode into the Taylor Fork on Feb 13, We saw four persistent slab avalanches that likely broke last weekend or at the beginning of the week. All appeared to be snowmobiler-triggered R1-2, D1.5-2 avalanches at broke of the January layer of near-surface facets and surface hoar. Photo: GNFAC
