Avalanche Discussion

Hey kids watch out tomorrow - the word EXTREME isn't used very lightly.


NWAC:
THURSDAY, THURSDAY NIGHT
Increasingly heavy snow or rain is expected Thursday, along
with very strong winds and significantly rising freezing
levels. This weather should produce a substantial increase
in the danger, with extreme danger expected to develop
Thursday afternoon and evening before slowly decreasing
Thursday night. Widespread natural or human triggered
avalanches should become certain Thursday afternoon, along
with an increasing potential for some large destructive
avalanches. Back country travel in avalanche terrain should
be avoided, and travel confined to lower angle terrain well
away from avalanche path runouts.


No matter what you may think - perceptual errors and scale aside - please use caution and be safe.

cd

I did a pole test in Gold creek valley at 3250 ft  on Tue. and found 2 ft settled on top of a 3in rain crust , to 12in  of air in the bushes, Maybe it was just the spot I checked but there was this void where I could see brush. my poles were out about 3ft for touring. May be 4.5 feet of snow on the ground. I stayed clear of slide areas and pooed around in the trees and by the creek.

FYI, skiing inbound at Snoq today, and in the lesser-traveled areas where you can still find virgin powder* I found eighteen inches of light fluffy over about an inch and a half of breakable rain crust, over another foot of light and fluffy. I can't speak for any other areas around, as I was pretty set on staying inbounds, but those layers are setting up to be pretty nasty. The rain crust is IMO the result of heavy rains from last weekend; anything that didn't slide in the last cycle should be considered extremely hairy. The crust was easy to detect with a pole test on gentle terrain, but thinned on slopes above 30 degrees, and on really steep slopes was really hard to discern. I didn't see anything similar to that while skiing Baker on Thursday, so I think it's just a result of the lower-elevation rain from last weekend.

Early in the day it seemed real stable, but late in the day I was setting off sluffalanches large enough bury a small poodle, and after dark the layer above the crust starting slabbing up enough for a few small cracks to appear. If that's the inbounds terrain at West and Central, I'd be real careful about heading into the BC, even if NWAC had dropped the dreaded "E" word from the forecast.


* I spend a lot of time at Snoq. Yes, even Summit West and Summit Central have stashes. No, I won't tell you where.

minor correction, hedgie...the frz rain crust was formed New Year's Day....which seemed like a weekend.

Oh, yeah. I spent New Year's Day getting the snow on Baker, but you're probably right; that was likely rain at Snoq.

NWAC

Looking like some dicey stuff in the next couple days...