CAIC

Details

Ridgeline Wind Speed: 10-20 mph
Ridgeline Wind Direction: NW
Wind Loading: Light
Temperature: 10 F
Sky Cover: Broken
Depth of Total Snow: 50 cm
Weather Description: Light winds at ridgetop with small breaks in the cloud cover.

Snowpack Description: We found a variable snowpack on east aspects. A slab of pencil hard snow existed in some places above weak snow at the ground but was discontinuous - like the general snow cover. A pit on an east aspect near treeline had propagating results at the interface of the pencil hard slab and facet layer near the ground. Once this aspect sees a significant load, the structure is there to create a Persistent Slab avalanche problem on this aspect for above and near treeline elevations. Westerly aspects still had snow available for transport and we observed active wind-loading onto easterly aspects above treeline. Cracking and collapsing at the interface of new and old snow was observed, however wind slabs in this location were confined to just below ridgetop and small. We remotely triggered a small wind slab avalanche just beneath ridge on an east aspect as we skinned towards the summit.---Below treeline there is about 20 to 30 cm of mostly faceted snow. We tried to push snow down tailings pile to see if loose dry avalanches were becoming a problem. It doesn't seem like we are there yet as the sluffing was hard to initiate.

Date

Location/Path

Elev

Asp

Type

Trig

SizeR

SizeD

2022/11/16 ^†

Loveland Pass-Southside

>TL

AS / r