We dug a pit adjacent to a small slab avalanche on lower Marmot that likely occurred Monday afternoon.
We observed recent wet loose avalanches and one new small slab avalanche on the lodge run of Marmot that occurred within the past 24 hours.
Observation: Hatcher Pass
Location: Marmot
We toured up Marmot from the Fishhook lot. A couple of our objectives were to check out moist snow surfaces and see how far into the snowpack the recent warm weather affected the snowpack in addition to looking at a small avalanche that occurred on a south facing rollover on lower Marmot, likely Monday afternoon.
Avalanche Details
Obvious signs of instability
| Recent Avalanches? | Yes |
| Collapsing (Whumphing)? | No |
| Cracking (Shooting cracks)? | No |
Observer Comments
There are numerous recent small to large wet loose and a handful of slab avalanches that have occurred since Monday. The most numerous are on southerly aspects, SE to SW. We also observed some wet loose on West aspects. Avalanches were observed at all elevations.
Weather
Unseasonably warm weather (41ยบ at 3,000' at 11:30 AM) that felt hot with a faint breeze on the Marmot ridge was a welcome cool off. ***Frostbite,IM, Marmot NO OVERNIGHT freeze since 9am 3/6
Snow surface
The snow surface has a significant melt freeze crust on sun affected slopes. (See photo in obs) As the day went on the crust softened and skied like corn however old tracks were still hard making for a variable surface any place that has been previously skied. The ski quality on north facing where the crust has not developed is significantly better.
The snowpack on steep south aspects was wet to moist (top to bottom of the pack)to the ground resembling an isothermal snowpack found in spring.. only it is a month or two early.
We found moist snow that varied significantly depending on aspect - westerly had a zipper crust with dry snow beneath in some locations and up to 4-6" of moist snow on top of dry snow in other locations.
Snowpack
On south facing slopes the snow was moist to the ground even in our 180 cm deep pit. On westerly the moisture only was about 4-6 inches into the snowpack and on anything north facing or north with a tilt is still dry on the surface.
3.8 Natural slab Lodge run on Marmot 4000' SSW
3.8 Wet loose skyscraper with some debris touching summer road. 4000' S aspect
3.7 Wet loose debris on Marmot 4500' SSW
3.6 Lower marmot slab S 3500'
3.7 Arkose Ridge WSW aspect natural wet loose 3700'
3.7 Wet loose SW Marmot 3800'
3.8 Natural wet loose on the Hatcher pass roadcut at the entrance to Hatchers
Above freezing temps since March 6th at 4500'
Lower Marmot-08-Mar showing moist snow to the ground!
3.8 New melt-freeze crust on low angle southerly