Observation: Days Fork

Rimed stellars that fell during the period of heavy snowfall this afternoon were sloughing easily, and toward the end of the period, propagation of a weakness within the new snow was possible, although it was a very managable, with shallow soft slabs breaking at your skis and eating themselves up as they ran. Longer running natural sloughs were noted on big terrain in Cardiff Fork and Hellgate-Superior. I was anticipating finding recent windslabs from yesterday's strong winds, but I did not find anything suspicious--aside from, you know, the snowpack--beneath today's new snow. Winds did pick up noticeably on our last run back to SR 210, and I imagine that our new snow will drift into wind slabs on S-E-N facing slopes overnight, before the next round of snow arrives tommorow morning.

We are likely in for a memorable avalanche cycle or two by the beginning of next week. Not much to say about the structure on E-N-W facing slopes that has not been said lately. There is some wind effected snow in exposed terrain, providing the occasional feeling of strength, but it is surely an illusion. It may be splitting hairs to say so, but my hunch is that sheltered terrain will respond to a rapid load before ridgeline starting zones, making road banks, gullies, drainage bottoms, and seemingly innocuous small terrain features worthy of caution. Will today's snow act as a weak layer underneath tommorow's snowfall, instigating new snow slides and robbing us of a significant deep-slab cycle? Southerly facing slopes with consistent snow cover also have a weak snowpack, although it is a little more complex than what we have on the shady slopes. Most of the southerly snowpack in upper LCC is a multi-layered crust-facet sandwich, with abundant easy shears and large-grained facets in the mid-pack. Recent observations from Two Trees and East Hellgate are worth a look.