Fair weather, facets, and fairly recent avalanches

Riding quality was:

OK

Snow conditions were:

• Crusty
• Wet

We rode:

• Alpine slopes
• Mellow slopes

We stayed away from:

• Convex slopes
• Steep slopes
• Sunny slopes

The day was:

• Sunny
• Warm

Avalanche conditions

• Rapid temperature rise to near or above 0°C or wet surface snow.

The Field Team spent the day North of Feather Peak. Winds were light from the Southeast and clouds were scattered. The sun was intense and temps were warm with an alpine high of 7 and low of 1.8 degrees. A widespread, supportive, 3cm thick crust has formed on the surface from recent warm temperatures during the day and re-freezing at night.

There were numerous slab avalanches that had run recently in lee West, North, and East facing alpine terrain. They were mostly size 2's. Some of these were in very steep terrain, and some in much lower angle, skiable/rideable terrain (see photos).

We also saw evidence of many loose wet avalanches having run on direct solar (south facing) aspects over the past week, ranging up to size 2.5 (see photos).

Digging in the snow on a North aspect revealed the weak facet layer from March 10th buried 66cm down. It is likely the culprit weak layer for the recent natural avalanches mentioned.

See photos for snow profile.

See video for details: https://vimeo.com/325590303

As we skied out from the area in the afternoon, the hard surface crust had softened and melted out in many sun exposed areas.