Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 12/18/2018
Name: Evan Ross
Subject: Crusty and Dusty? Crunchy Bread and Soggy Bread? Good and Bad? Hard and Soft?
Aspect:
Elevation: 10,800-12,800
Avalanches:
Weather: Partly cloudy early in the morning, then overcast through noon and bluebird in the afternoon. Light winds at ridgeline with some moderate gusts.
Snowpack: Little bit of everything out there. Don’t need to talk about the crusty south, so how about the snow on east and north. No signs to instability today, but still traveling with the threat of Persistent Slab structure in mind. Spend a good bit of time skiing around on an above treeline northeast to east to southeast facing bowl. The Northeast portion of the bowl was mostly all old avalanche debris with about 20cm of NSF on top of those debris. Felt like skinning in a sandbox. Moving across to east the snow surfaces were not as bad in regards to persistent gains, but still some small faceted grains on the surface. Crusts formed as the slope started having southerly tilt and I didn’t spend time looking at those crusts. HS 100-130 at 12,000ft in this area.
Traveled through a good hunk of BTL north. These were steep upper 30 to 40 degree slopes and just about everything had previously avalanched this winter. HS around 50cm, no slab and weak.
Photos: