Avalanche: Summit

It was partly sunny, windy and cold. Temperatures were about 15 F at the car and there was strong wind on the ridgetops mostly from the northwest, but there were times when we noticed it was blowing from the south on Raven’s Ridge.

At the parking lot there was a thick crust below 6-8” of soft new snow. At 1,300’ the crust was 6” thick with 6-8” on top. At 1,350’ we noticed a sun crust on a small steep south facing slope that was a few inches thick. The sun crust only existed on steep south facing slopes. As we came out of the trees there was a variety of wind affected surfaces including soft sastrugi, wind texture, and wind slab several inches thick.

We dug a pit at 2,600’ on a west aspect where the snowpack was 4.8’ deep (115cm). The interesting layers included a 2” (5cm) wind slab on top, the President’s Day crust 6” (15cm) down, and the January facets about 1.3’ (40cm) below the surface. It was hard to tell where this layer ended and where the layer below it began because they were all rounding facets that were 1F hard. We did not get any concerning test results (CT1 PC 5cm down below wind slab, CT30 RP 40cm down on Jan facets, ECTX). The President’s Day crust didn’t have any facets surrounding it yet, which was good to see. The January facets were 4F-1F hard but were very loose and dry when we pulled them out of the snowpack. They were rounding and connecting in places when we looked through the scope so these are positive signs that we will keep tracking.