Natural Avalanche Activity

Conditions report

Ursus Trees

Sabina Wodak · Feb 9, 2017 · Glacier

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Conditions report

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Ursus Trees

Spent the last few days teaching an AST2 course. Yesterday my group of 6 set the skin track into Ursus Trees. We observed no wind in the morning but in the afternoon there was a light wind from the South. Trail breaking was about 40cm deep. It was -11 in the valley but -3 at 2250m, warmer up high as the storm pushed on. The surface snow was -3.8 and 40-50 cm down in the snowpack -10. It snowed all day, heavily for most of it. CTE(SC) down 15cm, CTM (SC) down ~45cm, ECTM to end of column & CTH(SP) down 80cm.
Lots of slabbing 15cm deep in the more open but of concern was the slab 40cm down. Lots of sloughing in steep trees, almost too much.
Heard and saw a few natural avalanches. Of note: Cheops #4 ran full path to size 3 at 3:30pm with an impressive powder cloud. It ran again in the area about 10mins later. Frequent Flyer ran to the skin track, barely.