March 2, 2008, Red Mountain
3/2/08
WA Snoqualmie Pass
2407
3
Skied Red Mountain today. Unfortunately, the nice new snow got cooked in the sun and stability went from Good to Fair (at best) as a result. We kicked off some slow-moving wet new snow that ended up being around size D1.5 by the time it came to a halt. Activity was on SW to S aspects around 4500 feet. Also saw a natural size D2 wet new snow slide on a steeper south aspect skiers' left of our skin track. Couldn't tell if evident tree damage was from today or from earlier activity. Activity was confined to new snow failing on the old snow interface.
Probably a poor aspect choice to ski today or should have hit it a few hours earlier. Lots of folks up there. No pictures. Hope everyone made it home safely.
Probably a poor aspect choice to ski today or should have hit it a few hours earlier. Lots of folks up there. No pictures. Hope everyone made it home safely.
The Bearded One and I were the last off, and yes, should have left much earlier. B took a tumble near the head of the shallow gully skiers right and initiated a 100'+ free ride. Fortunately he was able to self extricate, though a pole was lost. Good object lesson here on importance of an early start and allowing goals (to summit) to dominate the decision process. Otherwise, a great day to be in the mountains.
I was up there with you and the bearded one. It did look like he took a little bit of a slide on the way down. What I did find that was really scary was that layer about 60-70 cm down that did not fail on any shovel compression tests, but did POP out with a Q1 when I did the shovel shear test. Pretty stable, however if it becomes less stable or you hit a trigger spot, bye bye. Very scary slab indeed.
We set the skin track Sun morning and got to about 5k and backed off. We did 4 tap tests, the first failed below Friday's rain crust while digging the column. Two sluffed in the top 15 in. of fluff at 5-10 taps from the wrist. The fourth failed on the rain crust at 5-10 from the wrist. Slightly unsatisfied ;), we dug two rutschblocks. The first sluffed on flex of the knees. The second sheared quickly and clean on the rain crust at knee flex. That turned us around. Nice to see everyone made it back!
Reply to this TR
Please login first: