Observation: Uintas 1/6/2012

Observer Name:

Ted Scroggin, Joe McFarlane

Observation Date:

01/06/2012

Region:

Uintas

Location or Route:

Whitney Basin, Humpy Peak

Weather

Sky:

Few

Weather Comments:

Hard to believe it's January out there with these warm temperatures. The back country is pretty quiet these days and we did not see another rider all day.

Snow Characteristics

Snow Surface Conditions:

Powder

Dense Loose

Faceted Loose

Wind Crust

Melt-Freeze Crust

Snow Characteristic Comments:

Quite a mix of snow conditions, we found some settled powder in protected shady areas and bullet proof wind hammered snow along the ridgelines with spring-like melt freeze snow on the sunny slopes.

Red Flags

Cracking

Collapsing

Red Flag Comments:

Once off the machines we experienced lots of cracking and collapsing of the snow pack. While on the snow machines if you looked carefully you could see shooting cracks out ahead of your sled as you traveled through areas where the wind has deposited a stiff slab over the weak underlying snow.

Primary Concern

Primary Concern:

Persistent Slabs

Probability:

Considerable

Aspect:

North

Northeast

East

Elevation:

High

Mid

Trend:

Same

Primary Concern Comments:

Not much change in the conditions that we observed. We had many collapses and cracking of the snow pack and observed one small sled triggered pocket on a wind loaded slope.

snow_profile_location:

Comments - Photos - Videos (group 1)

This small pocket released recently, likely from these sled tracks on a east aspect that was wind loaded from last week.

Observed Danger Rating:

Considerable

Forecast Danger Rating:

Considerable