Recent Avalanches

Wind Loading

Poor Snowpack Structure

Recent Avalanches: The only recent activity observed today were sluffs and point release avalanches. There was a small, but long running sluff off the summit of Tuk going down the NE face. The meat cleavers dropped some sluffs into Middle Snow Cirque. Some sluffs ran into Red Snow Cirque from the steep North facing terrain above. No photos, vis was low today. Wind Loading: North and East facing terrain NTL and ATL had been previously loaded by Thursday's storm. Those slopes continued to load today. Moderate winds from the south were blowing and drifting snow onto lee slopes. A decent sized cornice is developing on pre laurel peak. When we got the occasional look across Gold Basin, it was obvious the North and East facing terrain over there was freshly loaded. Poor Snowpack Structure: When traveling up the Laurel Highway there is a dramatic difference in the snowpack from the windward/solar aspects compared with the lee slopes that face North and East. I walked around a bit on Julie's Backside and the snowpack feels upside down right now. Dense storm snow is sitting on top of weak facets on these slopes. This is fairly obvious with a pole probe. Once you hit the facets your pole will go deeper and deeper without feeling the bottom. I wouldn't be skiing that side right now. This problem is compounded by wind drifted snow putting an additional load on these facets.