Observation Sub Peak West Shoulder
Avalanchestephenhanus · Mar 14, 2020 · East Side 93N
Quick report
- Weather
- cold
- Ride Type
- denseTrees, sunnySlopes, openTrees, alpineSlopes, mellowSlopes
- Stayed Away
- convexSlopes, steepSlopes
- Riding Quality
- terrible
- Snow Conditions
- windAffected
- Avalanche Conditions
- avalancheConditionSound
Awesome day to be out ski touring instead of TP shopping, and enjoyed the awesome views. Found a few turns in sheltered and mostly south facing lee slopes in tree line areas, but got more variable toward the alpine areas. Alpine areas are wind hammered - fine for A-to-B travelling but not for turns. Wumpfing with radiating cracks in this area.
Weather
- Avg Temp
- -17
- Min Temp
- -23
- Wind Speed
- windSpeedCalm
- Sky Condition
- brokenClouds
- New Snow24 Hours
- 0
- Temperature Trend
- rising
- Precipitation Type
- none
Colder than seasonal norms, but good visibility and no wind made for a great day. Winds from the northerly arctic bast the last couple of days have left their mark. Good coverage from the last storm from the March 7th storm, especially for these often wind blasted slopes, but snow is hard packed at tree line and alpine areas. This makes for good ski crampon or boot packing if going to the summit using conservative terrain, but poor skiing on the way down. A quick change to seasonal norms looks like it’s coming on Sunday.
Snowpack
- Obs Type
- summary
- Cracking Observed
- 1
- Surface Conditions
- variable
- Whumpfing Observed
- 1
Classically variable snowpack for this area. ~3cm new snow from Friday night, with some blown in snow in sheltered areas and south facing lee areas provides ~10cm of powder to ski on. Strong north winds turned tree line and alpine into a boiler plate slab about 5cm thick. Here is where the snowpack sounded a bit hollow in places, some cracking around ski tracks, and several wumpfs that radiated cracks a few meters. These occurred in areas above 2400m, on east facing slopes on low angle terrain.
Avalanche
- Avalanche Occurrence Datetime
- 2020-03-14T12:00:00
No signs of recent avalanches seen in the area