Observation Date:
February 6, 2021
Submitted:
February 6, 2021
Zone or Region:
Galena Summit and Eastern Mtns
Activity:
Skiing/Snowboarding
Location:
Senate
Did you observe any avalanches?
Yes
Avalanche Type:
Hard Slab
Size:
Size 3: Could bury and destroy a car, damage a truck, destroy a wood frame house, or break a few trees
Elevation:
Upper
Aspect:
NW
Comments:
Several significant debris piles in the runout zones of the NW bowl of Galena. Difficult to identify start zones/crowns from a distance, but based on size of debris, maybe one D3 and several other D2s in that zone.
Did you see shooting cracks?
No
Did you experience collapsing or whumpfing?
Yes, Isolated
Went into the day with the mindset of staying out of avalanche terrain due to weak snowpack structure and recent strong winds. It wasn't very windy/exposed where we were skiing but we saw visible plumes of blowing snow in the high elevation terrain of the Smokies, all the way across the valley. Dug a 90 cm pit at ~9100' on a SW aspect a bit below the ridge. No propagation on an ECT but the thick pile of 12/11 facets was ever-present (and not actually buried all that deep in this particular location). The upper snowpack appeared to have two distinct layers, 1/27 + a thin layer between major late Jan storm and the new snow that fell during the past week.