Observation: Girdwood

Location: Notch Mountain Past the Powder Hut

Date:

April 16, 2021 12:40pm

Observer:

Lou Mei Gutsch

Route & General Observations

We skinned up the cat track and stopped to dig a pit at 5 yards past the powder hut. We saw wet loose slides at every aspect when skinning up. We heard a whoompf when digging our pits.

Red Flags

Red flags are simple visual clues that are a sign of potential avalanche danger. Please record any sign of red flags below.

Obvious signs of instability

Recent Avalanches?	Yes
Collapsing (Whumphing)?	Yes
Cracking (Shooting cracks)?	No

Observer Comments

We saw wet loose slides at every aspect when we were skinning up the cat track. We also heard whoompfing when digging the snow pits.

Weather & Snow Characteristics

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

Weather

No new snow. It was a blue bird day. Started out in the 30's fahrenheit in the morning, and by the mid day and afternoon, it was late 50's fahrenheit.

Snow surface

No new snow. Had good crust on the top that was 1 mm thick.

Snowpack

We did the CT, ECT, and PST. The results, we got a CT 17 at 30 cm from the surface. We got an ECTN 29 at 30cm from the surface. We got a PST 16/100 END at 30cm. The layer of concern was at 30 cm below from the surface. We dug the pit to 120cm. The total snowpack height was 320cm. The snow stability was good in the morning and poor in the afternoon as the temperatures got warmer.