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Observation: Lewis Peak Area

Observation Date
12/10/2022
Observer Name
Derek DeBruin
Region
Ogden » Lewis Peak Area
Location Name or Route
Lewis Peak, Nordic Valley Periphery
Weather
Weather Comments
No precip (yet!, but fingers crossed...) Mostly cloudy skies, consistent light winds out of the SW quadrant, increasing to moderate near the ridgeline, gusting to strong.
Snow Characteristics
Snow Characteristics Comments
Aside from the hard packed wind affected snow at the ridge, we generally found soft-ish snow with plenty of time spent falling through into the factets beneath.
Red Flags
Red Flags
Wind Loading
Cracking
Collapsing
Red Flags Comments
Snow was definitely getting blown around at the ridgeline (ca 7600ft) and a few hundred feet below. The east side of the ridge had clearly been regularly wind loaded, with a stack of thick wind slabs, and surface snow blown in to 4F hardness. Below ridgeline in the scrub and small trees, we found plenty of small cracking/collapsing at our skis, but nothing propagating significant distances.
Comments
Dug on an east facing slope at 7600ft with intent to see what might happen with the wind slab (since collapsing and cracking has stopped in the wind affected terrain).
Found a smattering of damp facets at the ground with +/-15cm of ice on top. Another 35cm of F hard facets rested on the basal ice. This was capped with about 55cm of P hard wind slab layering. The near surface snow was 25cm of 4F, the result of wind doing its work on Thursday's couple inches. Snow height was only around 60-70cm or so in the sheltered terrain just a bit lower.
After much consternation isolating an ECT column we found ECTP19, failing 80cm down at the interface between the P hard snow and the November facets. Some quick shears also showed poor bonding in the newest snow to the stout hard pack beneath, so I wouldn't be surprised to see surface slabs 20-25cm thick releasing under the weight of a person in a bit steeper terrain.
Today's Observed Danger Rating
None
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
None