Observation: Whitney Basin

Observation Date
1/24/2018
Observer Name
jg
Region
Uintas » Bear River Ranger District » Whitney Basin
Location Name or Route
Weber Canyon
Weather
Sky
Scattered
Wind Speed
Moderate
Weather Comments
Warm in the sun earlier in the day before the clouds started streaming in. Winds started cranking mid afternoon from the west south west loading the lee slopes but wind slabs were shallow and soft and not abundant.
Snow Characteristics
Snow Surface Conditions
Dense Loose
Faceted Loose
Wind Crust
Damp
Red Flags
Red Flags
Wind Loading
Poor Snowpack Structure
Avalanche Problem #1
Problem
Wind Drifted Snow
Trend
Increasing Danger
Problem #1 Comments

Wind slabs were small, shallow and soft but the winds were just starting to crank. Increasing danger with prefrontal winds.

Avalanche Problem #2
Problem
Persistent Weak Layer
Trend
Same
Problem #2 Comments

Increasing danger in wind zone and with the possibility of additional water weight from next storm but it doesn't look like much water is going to be added to the snow pack.

Snow Profile
Aspect
North
Elevation
9,800'
Slope Angle
30°
Comments

Pit profile on upper elevation east face and results of ECT.

Traveled from 7400 ft - 10,200 ft. on the north half of the compass. Still very thin cover at lower elevations below about 8800 ft. Found a mostly stable snow pack with no cracking or collapsing and no progagation or hard effort to fail on ECT's. The newest storm snow seems pretty relaxed right now. Winds picked up mid day and were transporting snow but not much in the way of new wind slab development. Noticed rounding and chaining of some facets but the snow pack structure is not ideal and persistent slab avalanches continue to be of concern, although they are probably getting a bit harder to trigger right now. Consequences are pretty high if you do trigger one though.

Pit tests reflect that the shallow snow pack areas like the east facing slope i dug in show more of a propensity to propagate a fracture than the deeper north facing slopes.

Low to moderate danger where I traveled today. Most likely the same tomorrow unless you're traveling in the wind zone.

Today's Observed Danger Rating
Moderate
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
Moderate