Observations

Arctic Valley

Red flags (obvious signs of instability):

• Subtle whumph (collapse) on a cross-loaded terrain feature (NW aspect, ~3500′)

Weather:

• Mostly cloudy with some very light passing snow showers and sunny breaks
• Alpine temps in the 20s
• Calm wind

Surface conditions:

• Generally 6-7″ new snow from Wednesday-Thursday, more in wind-loaded areas (up to a few feet)
• Widespread surface hoar
• Radiation recrystallization on solar aspects

Snowpack:

• 3529′, 293* NW aspect, 35* slope
• 131cm height of snow, 17cm new snow (from Wed-Thur)
• ECTP1 sudden collapse down 17cm at new/old snow interface (faceted top of old wind-packed layer)
• ECTN18 down 41cm on 4F facets between 1F+ wind packed layers

Surface hoar:

Gordon Lyon skintrack:

South Fork Eagle River from Gordon Lyon: