sluffs running full path and entraining enough snow to injure, but not bury, a skier.
Observation: Turnagain
Location: Cornbiscuit
Skied a few laps on SW and WSW aspects of Cornbiscuit.
Dug two pits near the top of the first knob in an area of wind deposit. ECTX x2.
Sluffs did run fairly big on 2 of our laps, wiping out previous tracks, producing a big powder cloud, and a significant debris train.
There are at least 3 large glide cracks open in the normal descent routes on Cornbiscuit, and all of them are impossible to see from the top of the line. There is one glide crack that I saw photos of last week that I could not find today. I’m not sure if it slid, or was covered by the new snow.
We saw several avalanche crowns that were most likely storm slabs that happened 2 days ago, during or right after the storm.
Also a glide crack released and slid within the last 24hrs on the south end of Seattle Ridge (no photo). D1, not full path.
Observer Comments
Weather
sunny blue skies. Intermittent winds 5-10mph, but often calm.
Snow surface
20-70cm powder. Significant settling compared to yesterday.
Snowpack
We dug 2 pits 50ft apart at 2930ft on a WSW aspect. 31deg slope angle
depth of snow 250cm
pit depth150cm
the two pits were very similar in structure and had identical test results
75cm fist hard loose new snow
65cm 4f hard older snow
20cm - below 1f slab
I identified some melt/freeze crust in one of the pits, but it was discontinuous, and unreactive.
ECTX x2, including overdrive
shovel pry after ECT very resistant but Q1 shear at 110down x2
right side up snow hardness profile in the top 150cm / 5 feet
ECTX - the shovel just plowed through the new snow without triggering any layers below
second day in a row I almost skied right into a glide crack
Sluffs running from 2 different laps. They took awhile to get going, but were very powerful once they did, fortunately we were well out in a safe zone by then.
2 glide cracks on the front face (road facing aspect) of cornbiscuit
The glide crack in PMS Bowl / Magnum, an unidentified group laid a perfect skin track to avoid it and avoid hazard from the cornices.
several old storm crowns seen on the north-west aspect between Gold Pan and Pastoral. There was a similar crown adjacent to Grand Daddy Couloir, on a similar NW aspect
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