Avalanche Discussion

Be very wary of pan point in a east wind. In fact its a no go for me. Always check the telemetry which also gives latest wind direction and speed. And actual field conditions reported above by 0321 along alta vista west facing confirmed the Avy Forcast posted here by Lowell. Digging a pit might have kept you warm but your eyes should have seen enough by then.
We were in Silver basin Crystal mountain where there had been little wind lower in the basin I was seeing no wind effects on the snow . Up near the ridge it was quite a different story.too bad there is'nt enough depth in the trees anywhere yet. On the return to Crystal via the quicksillver run I ski cut a steep nw facing roll just down from the chair offload. I cracked a 8" soft slab that wiped the whole thing. short runout I figured it was side loaded. It had not been skied this year.

I just got back from my AIARE Level I at Mt Baker, so I feel like I ought to chime in with my observations.

I was in that same course so I'll chip in with a bit of info. Our group did a Rutschblock test at around 4400'. It was on a 35 degree slope on an ESE aspect with moderate windloading. It scored RB4. The crack appeared 18" deep. I was pretty suprised with that result and questioned wether or not I would ski on a similar aspect. I'm glad to have taken that course and would recommend it to anyone. I have a whole new respect for this topic.

Merk's RB4 above failed about 4" above the crust on grapple that fell Friday morning and also was about 90-95% a complete block at Q2-Q3.  We had easy shovel shears that identified some facets at the crust and throughout the Snowpack. 

Friday afternoon the temp gradients looked good but as the weekend progressed strong gradients had been identified at the crust.  Watch for faceting near the crust especially in locations that may have received less accumulation.   

I would also watch for near surface facets and possibly surface hoar to develop as a new layer that will be buried by the new snow predicted for tonight and tomorrow.  This could create a touchy scenario with significant step down potential for potentially large slabs.  Particularly in areas that do not receive the number of triggers (skiers), like the North side of Table Mtn.

I took a quick solo trip to Source Lake yesterday. Took the regular trail in, and tested the snow at the rockslides with my ski pole. All consistant powder down to the rocks. Took the Source Lake split and tested the snow at the first open slide area; with my ski pole I was able to easily pull off top 6" of wind crust. Dug a couple of quick pits and found 6" wind crust failed with 7 - 9 finger taps (Q1.5). Being solo I turned back. Not a lot of danger but I didn't want to take even a short ride over rocks with only 2 feet of cover. Previous parties snowshoe tracks stopped there also, but a posthole trail continued on. I also saw hoar frost developing in the lee of rocks; and saw minor stress cracks in the wind crust. With calm conditions I sure there was hoar frost development last night, which could get buried by today's snow. If we get a big dump under warming temps, we could have a deep persistant weak layer for some time.

I did the trip on snowshoes, not really skiable yet. That's my two cents.

This may have been posted already, but there is an info exchange page on the FOAC website. It has recent snow profiles from various areas.

Here is the link.

www.avalanchenw.org/cgi-bin/search_reports.php

Just to throw this into the mix-

I was in Half Price Books in Everett recently and they had 4 or 5 copies of Powderguide: Managing Avalanche Risk for $6 or $7. It's written by 2 europeans and so far I'm enjoying it. Full color with lots of photos and illustrations of concepts (think USA Today). It also has the first english translation of Werner Munter's 3x3 method of avalanche risk reduction (haven't gotten that far yet). The only knock I have on it is the layout of the book; it's kind of chaotic with colors on colors which distract a bit.

Anyways, you can never have too many books in the library!