Recent Avalanches? | Yes |
Collapsing (Whumphing)? | Yes |
Cracking (Shooting cracks)? | No |
Quick tour to Tincan trees to check out recent avalanche activity and assess how reactive 1/10 buried surface hoar layer is.
Recent Avalanches? | Yes |
Collapsing (Whumphing)? | Yes |
Cracking (Shooting cracks)? | No |
We had several collapses on the 1/10 buried surface hoar from 1400 - 1800'.
Mostly cloudy in the morning and then obscured cloud cover in the afternoon. Winds and snowfall also picked up in the afternoon.
A small layer of surface hoar on the surface on top of about a foot of soft new snow.
We dug pits in two locations in the treeline elevation band (1400' and 1900') and found a layer of buried surface hoar 60-70 cm deep in both locations. At our lower pit we triggered several collapses in the area and had propagation in several extended columns tests with 12-13 taps. Our compression test also failed on 12 taps and had a sudden collapse in the surface hoar layer. These were remarkably consistent results which is probably due to the soft slab on top with fist to four finger hand hardness.