Observation: Mt. Raymond

Observation Date
12/4/2018
Observer Name
Gagne/Flaherty/Frey
Region
Salt Lake » Mill Creek Canyon » Mt. Raymond
Location Name or Route
Millcreek Canyon - Mount Raymond
Weather
Weather Comments
The sun was ok, but 1 day was enough and am ready for another storm.
Snow Characteristics
Snow Surface Conditions
Powder
Faceted Loose
Damp
Snow Characteristics Comments
Some southerly aspects had dampened and will be crusted on Wednesday. You could almost hear the near-surface facets growing today, and the top few cms have weakened Monday night and Tuesday and were sluffing on shady aspects. HS above the character-building thicket zone (> 9K) in Millcreek approaches 1 meter.
Red Flags
Red Flags
Collapsing
Red Flags Comments
Huge collapse when we transitioned to northeast aspect.
Comments
Tour today was Mount Raymond from Millcreek. We did trigger a class 1 slide on south-facing Mt Raymond. This was a pocket of recent low-density storm snow that had the right aspect and angle to the sun and warmed just enough. ~15 cms (6") thick.
Drew described it perfectly in Tuesday's forecast - it's all about the aspect right now. Ascending southwest and west aspects were generally stable and we found at most pockets of old snow down near the ground. Once we gained the ridge heading up towards Mt Raymond we had a huge audible collapse on a steep northeast aspect (video below).
Overall snowpack in Millcreek looks stable on all aspects below 9000', but the avalanche observation from Peter Earle from Sunday in Porter Fork on a shady northwest aspect at 8400' indicates there are pockets of preserved weak snow at the ground. Fortunately, quite easy to use an inverted pole to probe for structure where there is weak snow at the ground.
Video
Today's Observed Danger Rating
Considerable
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
Considerable