Observation Date: 01/07/2012
Route/Location:
Up the trail, south up the first boulder field, across the mouth of the first bowl, down to Kidney Lake, up the northeast ridge to the summit, ran laps on the north and east faces.
Weather:
Cooling trend and new, blowing snow. Increasing wind. Mostly cloudy.
Wind:
The fresh snow did not show signs of wind effect and remained very light. However, the wind increased as the day went on and was quite strong above 8500′.
New Snow: 6-12″
Avalanche Activity:
We observed signs of a large avalanche that came down the first bowl (the bowl east of Kidney Lake). Trees as large as 12″ were snapped and debris made its way surprisingly far down into the trees below. It appears that this avalanche released in the cliff bands above probably during the last warming trend last weekend.
Other Comments:
We experienced no settling of the snow pack. The new snow sits on top of a very hard melt crust. I dug a pit at 8900′ on a north facing 35 degree slope. In 200cm of snow, I got failure in two places. 50 cm from the surface and 90 cm from the ground.
The top layer failed at CT11 with a very poor quality sheer and very low energy. I could not even slide the snow off the column. It appears that this layer may have started to bond during the last warming trend.
The bottom failed at CT 26 Q1 with a lot of energy. This is the layer I was concerned about. Although it would take a lot of energy at my pit’s location, in the right (or wrong) spot, on steeper terrain, with the right trigger, failure on this layer would be catastrophic.
Observer: Joshua Phillips
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