Strong to extreme NW-W winds moved the 1-2" of recent snowfall all over the place at middle elevations. There may have been some isolated fresh, hard wind slabs, but we did not encounter any.
Strong winds had previously formed some dunes and waves on the snow surface, especially above 7500'. Lots of wind transport, but a lot of sublimation and not that much wind-loading in starting zones. There is very little snow available for transport.
We dug several hand pits, but our primary objective was to quickly observe recent snowfall and wind-loading/wind slab formation. We did not see any true wind slabs that formed in the past 24 hours at middle or lower elevations. The loading/wind transport was erratic due to the strong to extreme winds.
Snowpack observations from 6700-7200':
NW=90-110cm in sheltered terrain. A few cm of PP above a 2cm thick P hard crust, then impressively weak + large FC (F hard) for much of the pack except for some mid-pack crusts and stiffer layers. This ugly structure will be a concern if heavily loaded and/or during the spring shed cycle. I'd expect full-depth WL avalanches in snowpacks that look like this. This description only applies to sheltered NW below 7200'; most NW aspects had much thinner, harder snowpacks due to frequent, strong NW wind events.
SW=50-70cm. The entire pack was moist/damp to the mud at the ground. There were some faint crusts in the middle of the snowpack. Once the current/impending cold snap runs it's course, it won't take much heat+sun to get the spring shed cycle/WL issues started.
SE=100-120cm. Some PP over a crust, then crusts and FC in the upper snowpack. Most of the FC in the upper 40cm or so were moist/damp. This site was somewhat wind-affected and at the lower/middle elevation border.
Lots of glazed surfaces could be problematic if/when it eventually snows.
Problem | Location | Distribution | Sensitivity | Size | Comments |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Wind Slab |
|
Unknown |
Layer Depth/Date: 10-50cm Comments: Shaded area indicates where you might find wind slabs. We did not encounter in lower and middle elevation terrain. I'd expect any fresh wind slabs to be isolated and stubborn to unreactive. |
We planned to avoid wind-loaded starting zones over 35* and kept to that plan. It would have been hard to find truly wind-loaded slopes below 8000'.