Mt Cleveland slab instabilities

Quick report

Weather

sunny

Ride Type

alpineSlopes

Stayed Away

steepSlopes

Riding Quality

good

Snow Conditions

windAffected

Avalanche Conditions

avalancheConditionSound, avalancheConditionSlab

Observed avalanche debris size 2.5 off NE side of Cleveland with 20 cm crown 150 m across, less than 24 hours old on our ski into Mt Cleveland via the standard route. Also observed some older debris size one rite off the top of Cleveland on the N aspect, covered with snow from last nite or yesterdays snowfall. On our run down the main NE face where we peeled the skins we had a settlement & shooting crack on a 25 degree slope at 5500 ft. Dug down to the sliding layer, (20cm) and found a very significant layer of big surface hoar crystals. Last Monday & Tuesday (23 and 24 of March) we were skiing in the same spot. Tuesday we saw a very significant layer of surface hoar that was being blown around but not being broken down, we were sliding backwards on our old uptracks from the previous day there was so much of it. Same surface hoar that the snow accumulation from this past week is now sliding on. We were on an open slope that I would have thought all the surface hoar would have been blown off or been broken down by the wind action, how wrong I was!