Silverking avalanche obs

Quick report

Ride Type

alpineSlopes

Riding Quality

ok

Snow Conditions

windAffected

Spent Friday to Sunday in Silverking area. Temps ranged from -20 to -2. High winds from the N Friday and Sunday, Saturday fairly calm even on peaks. Wind affected everywhere. Snow ranged from pockets of nice powder (lower on S aspects) to boilerplate (most N aspects) to breakable crust to 20 cm of sugar. No new snow. Recent storm produced many class 1 and a few class 2 slabs on new/old interface, mostly on S to SE aspect and all pulled out from steeper rocky terrain (see typical photo). Fairly moderate propagation. One may have stepped down to facet layer but path was too short to see second crown. We dug up behind the cabin; photo shows results. Bad layer of 2mm fist facets about 70 cm down, but it wasn't producing naturals. Compression tests were perfectly repeatable. We traveled in reasonable safety to top of Cronin by wind-hammered route. Skiing was mostly crap. Saw no current avalanche activity, but I'm sure we could have made some S aspects run if we'd gone there.