Public Field Report

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

Good Morning, This is Westy at Soldier Mountain Cat Skiing. We had something happen today that I want to share with you. We've been snowmobiling around the area and digging hasty pits for the last few weeks. Nothing remarkable noted, just the buried surface hoar layers you have been talking about for some time, no natural slides that you already don't know about. We threw 3 charges into Chute 1 and Big Bowl with no results except 2" recent wind deposited snow slab sliding on old snow surface. We skied down to Nose Bow. and threw two charges there, no results except I noticed a crack running about 100 yards down the fall line on the flank of our target bowl. Here is where it gets interesting. We were set to ski a lower angle slope at 8,000' E facing. I did a ski cut along the top where there is a normal wind slab and jumped on it as hard as I could. I sent one of our volunteer patrollers first and on his second turn he wheeled around and hit the snow with his back extremely hard. As he hit, the other 5 of us felt the snow settle about 100' around us. We immediately returned and dug a pit around the corner from this spot. I'll submit the pit data tomorrow, but the shear test showed IC18 Q1 and ECT20 NP on the upper surface hoar layer we all know about. My take away from this is a skier might not effect these layers but a higher impact or a snowmobile definitely would. If we get the predicted foot of new snow things might change also. We will be up for the next few days digging and skiing, I'll keep you posted.