Numerous glide cracks at the 1700' to 2000' level; recent wind loading and buried cornice debris in the alpine.
Observation: Turnagain
Location: Tincan
Standard route up Tincan through very thin snowpack and numerous stream crossings to ~1400′ then skinned under more normal conditions to summit of common.
Observer Comments
Weather
Partly cloudy in the morning with mild winds at lower elevations and moderate winds in the alpine. Temps in the low 30's to upper 20's. Mostly cloudy in the afternoon with increasing winds, snow showers and decreasing visibility. Temps in low to mid 30's at lower elevations and mid to upper 20's at higher elevations.
Snow surface
1000' - 1600': 1" of wet new snow over dense saturated older snow
1700' - 2000': 4" new snow over wet older snow
2000' 2500': variable 2" - 4" of new wind affected snow over moist old snow
2500'+: 4"- 10" wind slab and drifted wind affected snow over denser older snow. Layer of wet older snow found between 20 and 50 cm below the surface.
Snowpack
No formal pits done but did numerous hand pits mostly at the upper elevations.
At lower elevations the new snow was bounded pretty well to the older wet/moist snow. At the lowest elevations steep slopes were prone to wet sluffs/rollerballs and were getting punchy.
At upper elevations we found a lot of variability in the hand pits. Some pit showed great bonding at the new/old interface while a number pits showed easy shears in the new wind slab (some releasing at isolation).
We observed numerous glides and creeps, under steep rollovers, at the 1700' to 2300' level mainly on the northern region of Tincan.
glides/creeps at ~ 1800' (northern Tincan area)
more glides at ~2300'