The mountains picked up 8"-10" of low density powder on Friday, Jan 23. Northwest winds picked up the night of Jan 24, and blew all through the day on the 25th averaging 20-30 mph along ridge tops. Mercifully, most of the wind damage and subsequent loading occurred primarily above tree line. Today I ventured into the wind ravaged hellscape under the N Face of Mount Mellenthin. This zone is prone to being blasted by NW winds as they blow through Geyser Pass, and it is not necessarily indicative of high alpine conditions elsewhere including Gold Basin. I found heavily scoured terrain, breakable wind crust, sastrugi, and exposed talus. But even amidst all of this, I ran across a natural, hard slab avalanche that likely ran during the height of the wind event that put debris down into bare, exposed talus. I'll detail that in a separate report. Interestingly enough, as soon as I dropped below the highest band of trees, the snow became soft and sweet, and no sign of a slab was found.
Wind ravaged snow in the alpine.
This is looking due northwest where the winds came from. South slopes of the north group in the distance.
Snow became instantly soft with only minimal shelter and slight elevation drop. (11,200')
