| Recent Avalanches? | No |
| Collapsing (Whumphing)? | Yes |
| Cracking (Shooting cracks)? | No |
Observation: Turnagain
Location: Cornbiscuit
We toured up Cornbiscuit to see how the snowpack is responding to the recent loading event. We stayed down in the low-angle terrain in the alders because we don’t trust that January weak layer yet. We initiated two large collapses while we were skinning, and got poor test results in our snowpits. These are all clear signs showing us the snowpack is still unstable, and we felt good about staying in mellow terrain for the day.
Obvious signs of instability
Observer Comments
We got two collapses as we were skinning up, between 1000' and 2000'. We stopped and dug a snowpit at the second collapse and were not surprised to find the January facet layer to be the culprit.
Weather
Skies started out partly cloudy, with noticeable blowing snow along ridgetops but light easterly winds down near treeline. Clouds increased through the day and by around 2:30 pm we were in a cloud.
Snow surface
There was around 6" very light snow on top of another 8" or so of slightly stiffer new snow.
Snowpack
We dug four different pits between 1600' and 2000' elevation and got mixed results in stability tests. Half of the pits were giving us poor stability results (ECTP11, ECTP20) on the January facet layer, but the other half did not give us alarming results (ECTN26, ECTX).
The January facet layer looks to be rounding, but is clearly still weak. See attached photos for grain details. We'll still be treading lightly above this weak layer for a while, especially with another round of wind and snow on the way.
Recent natural avalanche on the front side of Seattle Ridge with blowing snow up on the ridge line. This is straight across from the motorized parking lot. 02.11.2024
More recent natural activity on Seattle Ridge, on the south end of the pass right above the Bertha Creek campground. 02.11.2024
Debris from a recent cornice fall (right) and lurking glide cracks (left) in PMS Bowl on Magnum ridge. 02.11.2024
We got unstable test results in both of these pits (ECTP20 and ECTP11) 02.11.2024
Snowpack details from one pit at 1800'. 02.11.2024
This was one of our pits that had poor structure but did not produce an unstable test result. Photo and markup: Andy Moderow, 02.11.2024.
Details from another pit at 1600'. We dug this pit right where we triggered the second collapse of the day. 02.11.2024
