| Recent Avalanches? | No |
| Collapsing (Whumphing)? | No |
| Cracking (Shooting cracks)? | Yes |
Observation: Girdwood
Location: Notch Mtn.
We hiked up to the top of the cat track and skied a few laps in some lower angle terrain. We saw a lot of active loading while we were out, with some sensitive fresh wind slabs near the top.
Obvious signs of instability
Observer Comments
We got a lot of shooting cracks on some freshly wind-loaded slopes. Some were shooting out ~50', with slabs creeping downhill a little bit even on some really low-angle slopes.
Weather
Cloudy skies with light snowfall all day. Calm winds all the way through the approach, but we started to feel the wind at about 1800', with sustained moderate easterly winds picking up speed through the day.
Snow surface
There was about 6" low-density snow on top of a crust to 2000', which was getting blown around above about 1800'. The fresh wind slabs were still pretty soft, and actually skiing quite nicely on the lower-angle slopes.
Snowpack
The fresh wind slabs were touchy, with plenty of shooting cracks. We were pretty careful to avoid the steeper rollovers. From a quick hand pit at about 2200' (higher than the buried crust), the new wind slabs were sitting on a layer of near-surface facets.
Cracking wind slab on a small convexity. 02.10.2021
Signs of cross-loading, with wind moving snow from left to right. The surface in the trees was firm, and we avoided the freshly loaded meadow just to the right of center in the photo. 02.10.2021