Gusty winds transporting snow in Taylor Fork on Saturday. Triggered a 4-5 inch deep wind slab that propagated about 50 ft at the top of a north east facing slope at 9,500 ft.
Photo: JP
We toured into Beehive Basin today and managed to get eyes on aspects throughout Beehive, Bear, and S Fork Spanish Creek Basins. We found excellent turns in spots, variable conditions in others, and a whole lot of rocks still exposed. Gorgeous, clear skies lent themselves to good visibility. Temps were cold at the trailhead but warmed quickly. Winds were predominantly from the South, gusting strong and moving snow around at ridgetops and summits.
Winds seem have impacted upper elevations; low to mid elevations still held soft snow. Outside of true north-facing aspects, most other aspects have seen some wind effect and were in quite variable condition. In the hand pits I dug on several different aspects, I noted light snow atop either sun crusts or wind-blown layers, all with small but well-developed facets underneath. Gullies hold close to a meter of snow but generally, coverage seemed to be around half a meter in depth.
Slab formation was limited to upper elevation ridgelines and little pockets in couloirs. Generally very few signs of instability were seen beyond one small (R1 D1) wind slab avalanche that came down from a rocky, exposed part of the ridgeline into Bear Basin. No surface hoar was noted anywhere. All in all, a lovely day to spend in the Spanish Peaks!
Skied from Beehive into Middle Basin today. On NE-E aspects there was ~25cm of low density snow over a supportive midpack. On SW-W aspects there was 5-15 cm low density snow over a supportive crust. Moderate NW winds were moving snow, but wind slab formation where we travelled was isolated to immediate ridgetop easterly aspects.
Just an initial look at low elevation snow around some of the ice climbs.
8" of new snow at the Grotto Falls TH.
I couldn't find any surface hoar that was buried by last night's snow, but I'm sure it's out there. Doesn't really matter because there's plenty of weak, faceted snow that was the previous snow surface.
The new snow is all fluff and not a concern at lower elevations in Hyalite. Perhaps it could be enough of a load and enough of a cohesive slab at higher elevations where more snow fell.
For now, things seem mostly stable, but that will change quickly with any amount of wind.
