Observation: Turnagain

Location: Eddies

Date:

February 27, 2022 3:00pm

Observer:

Andy Moderow

Route & General Observations

Eddies to 2600’… just below the final steep part!

Red Flags

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Observer Comments

Avalanche activity from last week was more apparent as the sun came out... as pictured below, this includes a slab just below ridgeline of Wolverine on a SW aspect, and two slides (D1.5 - 2) around 2000' on the small corniced SW aspect that's on skinners right of the usual Eddies uptrack. The crowns had been blown back in, and for the Eddies slides in particular the only real evidence of the activity was the debris piles, which included blocks that were up to 2' thick. Small to large debris piles were also present below Tincan Proper, Seattle Ridge (pictured), and at the back of the drainage between Eddies and Tincan.

A lone small wet loose slide was observed on a southerly steep cross loaded feature on Seattle Ridge late in the afternoon.

Finally, on the drive home a large crown and a variety of smaller crowns were seen on the mountain between Portage and Placer creeks - see photos below.

Weather & Snow Characteristics

Please provide details to help us determine the weather and snowpack during the time this observation took place.

Weather

Broken skies with high clouds blocking just a little of the sun...
despite the sun, surprisingly colder than yesterday... no wind.
temps in the 20s, just above freezing at the parking lot by late afternoon.

Snow surface

The snow surface was crusty sadness. At the parking lot, an almost supportable 3+" melt freeze crust was present over moist snow, though in the trees the overnight freeze wasn't quite as hard and there was still a thin breakable melt freeze layer that you could sink an edge in. This thick crust was still present at 1000', dissipating to a 1-2cm thick breakable grabby crust by 1500'. A breakable but still fairly grabby crust extended up to 2200'...

Above 2200' a variety of surface conditions existed, including a surprising amount of spots with 1-3" of faceting snow over hard wind affect from last week. Impressive anti-tracks and wind loaded pockets were also present.

The sun didn't really impact the surface where we skied today, which was generally low angle and a W aspect, occasionally including steeper SW terrain features - with the only moist surface snow at the parking lot by late afternoon.

Snowpack

We dug north of the Eddies ridgeline just below the steep face in a wind loaded spot, in an attempt to find buried surface hoar and to see how the recent wind slab was settling out. No sign of buried surface hoar; no results in an Extended Column Test, and Compression Tests failed under hard taps with a resistant planar fracture character. Full test results and structure are below!

Photos & Video

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Debris from one of two Eddies slabs last week, around 2000' on a SW aspect, just below the often corniced ridgeline to the right of the standard uptrack. A smaller but similar slide was higher up.

Where the crown should have been for this Eddies slab... refilled by winds the end of last week

A large crown just below Wolverine's ridge on a SW aspect, also refilled by last week's winds.

Driving home, this slab - including what looks like two different depths of bed surface - was present on the smaller, close to the road mountain between Placer and Portage Creeks.

On a ridge in the Portage Valley behind the slab pictured above, smaller crowns were present as well. (I guess this may be a ridge of Byron? I don't know these place names!)

Seattle Ridge debris from a cross loaded gully roughly across from Eddies

Wind affect at ridgeline - including anti tracks but also patches of soft faceting snow

A closeup of near surface facets - which also had some small surface hoar and decomposing grain types - taken the pit location

Pit structure and results from this wind loaded location just below the final steep face of Eddies

Another photo displaying the impressive anti-tracks at treeline...

Location

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