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Observation: Argenta

Observation Date
3/1/2013
Observer Name
Bruce Tremper
Region
Salt Lake
Location Name or Route
Argenta
Weather
Sky
Scattered
Wind Speed
Light
Weather Comments
Mountain top stratus clouds in the morning with rime and breaking up by mid day into mostly sunny. Warm temperatures.
Snow Characteristics
Snow Surface Conditions
Dense Loose
Wind Crust
Rain-Rime Crust
Damp
Snow Characteristics Comments

Decided to take a quick up-and-back in Argenta since I have not been in there yet this season. Now I remember why. The place gets tracked out almost instantly these days. Aaah, the old days...

Snow surface conditions were generally not worth the effort. More tracks than I have ever seen in there. The lower half was either damp or sun crusted and the upper half was crusted by recent wind and rime overnight. You could find a few scraps in the steep, north facing trees. But hey, at least the view was grand from the ridge. The east facing slopes in Mineral sure looked good and did not seem to be affected by the wind and riming yesterday and overnight. The north facing slopes at 10,000' and above seemed affected the most by wind and rime.

Red Flags
Red Flags Comments
No real red flags and most every square inch seem to be thoroughly stability tested by volunteers. My quick snowpits showed quite stable snow.
Avalanche Problem #1
Problem
Wind Drifted Snow
Problem #1 Comments

Mostly low danger but practice normal caution with the following mentions:

Wet Avalanches: With the very warm temperatures forecasted for Saturday, I would expect to see some more wet sluffs on the steep sun exposed slopes.

Wind slabs: With the wind and rime affects from overnight, I would expect you could find some areas of wind slabs especially along the upper elevation ridges from the northwesterly winds, but Argenta is not a good place to find them, so I did not see any.

The snowpack in the steep, north facing trees is quite weak and shallow and there are more and more places where you sink in to the ground in the bottomless faceted snow. It's not a problem now, but with significant loading....it could be bad.

I could also look into Mineral and most of east facing slopes have been skied fairly thoroughly by helicopter skiers and backcountry skiers.

Sorry, no photos, videos or snow profiles. Today was accumulating comp time for the week.

Avalanche Problem #2
Problem
Persistent Weak Layer