Cracking on old, faceted, October snow hundreds of feet long. North facing near treeline. Photo: BSSP
Intentional, human-triggered avalanche by a ski patrol breaking at the ground on a north facing slope near treeline. Photo: BSSP
From email: "Northerly facing terrain harbors October snow, which has faceted. It is holding up plenty of dense snow and wind slab from the quite snowy and windy November. It was unable to hold the additional weight of a human trigger, and two pockets failed at the ground, which produced avalanches. Crown height maxed at 2’. Notably, where it did not avalanche, the failure propagated hundreds of feet down the ridge. It is a good data point- northerly aspects near tree line have potential instability."
Early season conditions. At 8000' just below the Sacajawea trail bowl, there is about 9" of snow. In the trail bowl, winds moved that snow around and there is nice firm, supportable (ie - not hitting rocks) snow.
Warm weather really settled the snow and it became damp today on many sun exposed slopes. It stayed dry and cold on high north.
Overall, the things seem quite stable, even though there may be a wind slab or two that could still avalanche.
