Heavy Snowfall

Wind Loading

Yesterday's wild storm blasted everything with variable wind directions and the morning snowfall with high precipitation intensity had a lot of rime. So the trees at upper elevations have lots of rime and the snow at upper elevations has a graupel layer about 10 inches down with denser, wind blown snow on top. It feels a bit slabby when you push your ski pole in or dig with your hand, but on several hand pits I could not get it to pop out. The dense, rimed snow seems pretty solid with no cracking or sensitivities even on steep break-overs. Our high point was 9,700'. The snow at lower and mid elevations was quite good turning in about 5-9 inches of dense, surfy snow. Upper elevations had some wind damage with drifts and somewhat variable conditions. People were out and we saw a couple other parties up high along the ridges, and we saw some tracks on the northwest shoulders of Gobbler's Knob. No one triggering anything as far as we could see. I would rate the danger as Moderate where we were.