It was silly hot out there and most of the terrain I skied was unsupportable except for NW and N above 8,800'. I observed a couple of small wet loose avalanches that occurred in the last 24 hours in Mine Bender but no new activity in Warm Springs.
It's hard to say whether another weak freeze and warm day will push this snowpack toward more full-depth wet avalanches or simply fall short.
Hot and mostly calm.
# | Date | Location | Size | Type | Bed Sfc | Depth | Trigger | Comments | Photo |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
East Fork of the Bigwood - Mine Bender NW 8,600 |
D1 | WL | N-Natural | |||||
1 |
Pioneer Mountains - Handwerk Peak NW 10,000 |
D2 |
I did a lap through East Fork and Warm Springs on Wednesday (4/8) and again Thursday (4/9) to note any recent activity. The only slides I noticed today that weren't there yesterday were those small point releases in Mine Bender. I was there at about 430 PM on Thursday though and daytime highs continued to climb to 65 F in the valley bottom by 6 PM.
Baldy:
HS 130 cm on a 8,800' NW facing slope. The upper 30-40 cm was already wet by 230 PM but a crust (down 40 cm) was stiff enough to keep my board on top. Foot pen was to the ground. The snow quickly turned to mush as I wrapped around to any sunnier slope or lower elevation.
I was able to get sizeable roller balls going in N-facing terrain. I wasn't really in a good position to ski cut many steeper slopes but I don't doubt that I could have pushed some wet loose slides at middle and low elevations. The snow was so wet on exit that I was burrowing through 2-3' tall moguls.
Problem | Location | Distribution | Sensitivity | Size | Comments |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Wet Loose |
|
Comments: I felt that I could have easily gotten snow to move in steeper terrain on any aspect or elevation at the right time of the day. |
|||
Wet Slab |
|
Comments: No evidence of this problem yet. I don't think enough meltwater is moving through the pack at upper NW-N-NE to cause an issue in this location. |
I closed all avalanche terrain.