Kings Peak

Quick report

Weather

cold, sunny

Ride Type

steepSlopes, alpineSlopes, denseTrees

Stayed Away

convexSlopes

Riding Quality

good

Snow Conditions

heavy, windAffected, powder

Avalanche Conditions

avalancheConditionSound

Treeline and below was a hard ice crust (snowline 700m) with large Hoar Frost growing in areas open to the ski on Saturday evening. Not conducive to skiing, and was easier to bootpack with crampons. Above treeline was quite interesting on north aspects. The Main Glacier Gully of Kings was a hard storm slab, with the only reactivity in the top 50cm at choke points of the gully. Although a hand shear test popped the top 10cm very easily as it released on cutting, there was no propagation to be found when doing more conclusive tests. The remaining 40cm and below was very stubborn to release. Above the gully on the North Glacier at 1700m is where things got really interesting. The entire Glacier was a mix of vertical strips of melt freeze crusts interspersed with deposits of storm slab. (See photo) There was no reactivity in the storm slabs, and no crusts below it, just more of the same storm slab down to 1m However, on the areas with the Melt Freeze crusts (note: no sun gets into the north Glacier this time of year) it was MF crust down 10, crust with facets D 20, crust with facets D30, crust with rounds D35, crust with rounds D50. On these areas we experienced shooting cracks, whoomphs, and could see large areas (3m radius) around us settle with jumped on. We did our best to stick to the storm slabs while heading up, as we felt it reduced our risk.

Weather

Avg Temp

-5

Max Temp

-3

Wind Speed

windSpeedLight

Blowing Snow

light

Sky Condition

fewClouds

Wind Direction

SW

New Snow24 Hours

0

Temperature Trend

falling

Precipitation Type

none

Snowpack

Obs Type

point

Site Aspect

N

Site Elevation

1700

Ski Penetration

5

Test Initiation

none

Foot Penetration

10

Cracking Observed

1

Site Elevation Band

alp

Surface Conditions

newSnow, crust, variable, facets

Whumpfing Observed

1

Extremely variable in the North Bowl, with vertical bands of MF crust and Storm Slab, 1-5m wide. See quick report for more details.