Observation: Hatcher Pass

Location: Powder Pimple and Sunnyside of Hatch

Date:
Observer:
Route & General Observations

Post storm tour to assess snow depth and look for any buried drizzle crust. We observed numerous small to large natural loose dry sluffs in steep terrain.
No cracking or whumping observed today. We skied excellent snow during a narrow weather window before clouds socked back in. The coolest part of the day (besides the new snow) was seeing an animal track that travelled down the southside of Skyscraper, across the valley, up Bennets ridge, around Hatch and up the Powder Pimple. We think it was a wolverine.

Avalanche Details
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Avalanche Details

We observed numerous natural loose dry avalanches (sluffs) today , D1-D2, in steep terrain 40deg and steeper as a result of new snow since 2/11.
No recent slab avalanches were observed today which is not surprising and what we expected.

Red Flags
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Observer Comments

Other than numerous natural loose dry sluffs we did not observe any cracking or collapsing today.

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

New snow from 2/11 @ 3pm to 2/13 at 8am
Frostbite @ 2700' 8" new 0.5" SWE
IM @ 3550' 11" new snow 0.8" SWE
We observed a right side up snowpack with at least 12" new snow at 4000'.

No significant wind since Feb 11th.

Temps: 9am to 2pm
4500' -1 to 2degF
3550' 2 to 6degF
2700' 5 to 9 degF

Snow surface

New low density snow
A super brittle and hard to detect new drizzle crust was found at 2000' and below, but not any higher!

Snowpack

We just did pole tests and hand shears today with no red flags or pertinent info to share.

Photos & Video
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