| Recent Avalanches? | Yes |
| Collapsing (Whumphing)? | No |
| Cracking (Shooting cracks)? | No |
Observation: Hatcher Pass
Location: Fern Mine
Toured up Archangel Road past President’s Ridge towards the Fern Mine zone to assess upper snowpack structure after driving up to the Lodge/Independence Mine lot. We had some visibility but light quickly got flat as trace snow turned more steady by 2pm. With our 3-4″ of fresh snow on Monday the 4th, conditions were generally light and fluffy.
Obvious signs of instability
Observer Comments
Higher up in the pass, we saw small (D1) dry loose avalanches.
Weather
-Partly cloudy>Overcast and marginal vis.
-Light E winds. No moving snow.
-Warm! 28* by 1300
-Trace snow>S-1 or just under 1cm or<1/2" per hour by 1400
Snow surface
New snow from Monday bonded nicely with our 2/22-2/24 storm snow (see upper snowpack profile photo). Unsurprisingly, the best skiing was in places without lingering crusts or wind affected snow beneath. This was easy to find below ridgelines.
Snowpack
We dug a pit at 3,200' E facing. 32cm or 12"+ settled storm snow and new snow was sitting on top of a
~40cm wind packed brick from the mid-February wind event. This layer was impenetrable (Knife hard+), we did not dig below it. The structure here indicated that in areas with uniform bed surface (melt freeze crusts, wind packed rounds like this area), relatively dry, loose snow could sluff.
Loose Dry Avalanches on south aspect of Eldorado at 3900 feet 3/6/2024
Upper snowpack in the Fern Mine area. Skiing was generally better where new+old storm snow is sitting on loose facets versus enduring, hearty wind affect.
The upper snowpack: Monday's 3-4" refresh over settled 2/22-2/24 storm snow sits on varied surfaces: in some places this is unconsolidated facets, loosening crusts, or in this case a hard, uniform 40cm thick wind board.