Eric Flygare

Logan

Southern Wellsvilles

I dug four pits on East through Northwest facing slopes. All pits showed similar results; ECTN 25ish. Below is a picture of one of the pits and the ECTN failure. Snow depth was 2 feet below 7000 feet and 2.5 feet above 7000 ft. The entire column is faceted with all the cold weather and thin snowpack which made trail breaking tedious in steep terrain. Deeper snow in higher terrain was somewhat less faceted but still an issue.

The snow coverage looked great above 6500 but I found many rocks lurking near the surface of the snow. I lucked out and only hit one rock while riding but I figured this was the biggest danger of the day. It was hard to tell how the coverage was below 6500 feet since I was constantly trying to maneuver through the jungle of Maples and forest undergrowth.

The cold weather faceting has led to recent loose dry sluffing in steep terrain. The two pictures below show a couple of examples. Some of the sluffs ran hundreds of vertical feet before piling up deep in gullies.

I figured there would be significant sluffing in the steep terrain so I made a quick run for several hundred vertical and found a safe ridge to stop on. I wish I would have had the camera out faster to catch the entire sluff but the video below shows the sluff as it comes to rest. It was moving fast as it passed me and ran for 300 vertical feet. It piled up 2-4 feet deep at the bottom. It probably wouldn’t have buried anyone but with could have wrapped someone around a tree or rock along the path.