Since yesterday morning, 8-10" of new snow fell at upper elevations on Banner Summit. Primary avalanche concern today was wet snow at low elevations. At middle and upper elevations, the snow stayed cold enough to prevent wet snow problems. I did not observe significant wind loading along upper elevation ridgelines.
More sunshine than expected this morning, but clouds increased around noon and snow squall brought S2 for a brief period. No wind loading was occurring while I was out, and loading yesterday was less than forecast.
Did not observe any significant avalanche activity. Glassing the northern Sawtooths and the mountains south of Copper this morning in good light, I only saw minor D1 dry loose sluffing on very steep, rocky slopes that occurred near the end of the storm.
At the highway level, yesterday's 10cm HN was wet enough that it was just barely ski supportable this morning and was covered with the 5cm of HN from early today. The HST increased and dried out with elevation, with up to 23cm of dry HST observed on upper elevation shadies. At mid to upper elevations, the old 3/18 surface crust stayed frozen and supportable today. Lower elevations became moist to wet and the 3/18 crust thawed - at 2pm conditions were not quite wet enough to trigger wet slides, but it might have got there later in the afternoon.
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Comments: I expect that the wet problem existed on all aspects at lower elevations by the afternoon. |
Drifting along exposed ridges was minimal and I did not observe any wind slabs.
Terrain use was more dictated by solo travel than conditions.