Cold Feet Assessment Day

Quick report

Weather

cloudy, windy

Ride Type

alpineSlopes, denseTrees

Riding Quality

good

Snow Conditions

crusty, powder, windAffected

Avalanche Conditions

avalancheConditionTemp

Due diligence day investigating the current PWL before thinking about stepping into bigger terrain. Dug 2 pits on SW and NW aspects around 2000m, see photos for profile data. Saw some reactive wind slab on lee slopes, up to 10cm deep. Winds were gusting to moderate from the SW. Breakable sun crust on protected solar features up to 2200m. Good boot top pow skiing in shady features above 1500m, fast slushy skiing below 1500m in the pm. 3-10cm of new snow.

Weather

Avg Temp

-3

Wind Speed

windSpeedLight

Blowing Snow

light

Sky Condition

brokenClouds

Wind Direction

SW

Storm Start Date

2024-02-20

Storm Snow Amount

10

Temperature Trend

steady

Precipitation Type

none

Snowpack

Obs Type

summary

Site Elevation

1998

Cracking Observed

1

Site Elevation Band

alp, tln

Surface Conditions

crust, newSnow, variable

Test Failure Layer Crystal Types

surfaceHoar

ECTP1 result on SW aspect failed on easily identifiable surface hoar above solar crust buried during tuesdays storm. PWL surface hoar on SW aspect failed on CT23 basically crumbling with a few hits from the shoulder. Unreactive in ECT. Very hard to identify and is almost homogenous with the overlying rounding facets. An identical surface hoar layer failed in our second pit on NW aspect at CT4 down 10cm, but was unreactive to ECT. No solar crust in this area. PWL surface hoar layer failed at CT19 sudden collapse. Surface hoar is still identifiable in small broken pieces, but was unreactive to ECT.