Observation: Turnagain

Location: Sunburst

Date:

December 17, 2017 3:03pm

Observer:

Wendy Wagner and Sam Galoob Professional

Route & General Observations

Tour up Sunburst Ridge to look at the snowpack structure and assess the facets near the ground as well as the new snow bonding.

Red Flags

Red flags are simple visual clues that are a sign of potential avalanche danger. Please record any sign of red flags below.

Observer Comments

No Red Flags today.

Weather & Snow Characteristics

Please provide details to help us determine the weather and snowpack during the time this observation took place.

Weather

Overcast skies, Temps in the mid 20'sF, light East and North winds along the ridge. Generally a calm day with visibility in and out.

Snow surface

4-8" of loose power over a crust/harder snow, denser wind affected snow and occasional scoured areas to a crust.
Small 1-2mm surface hoar on top of these mostly soft snow surfaces.

Snowpack

We dug one pit today to assess the upper elevation snowpack stability.

Pit at 3,200', SW aspect, ~18 deg slope, snow depth 4' (115cm)
ECTX
CT22 down 8 and 12" (20 and 30cm) progressive compression in storm snow
DT 21 in Nov facets under crust on tundra (DT stands for Deep Tap test)

Top 12" new snow, middle 26" hard slab with crusts, bottom 4" thin layer moist facets over crust over moist facets. Slab is sticking to the bottom crust well but facets underneath on the tundra are still loose in places. See photo for pack structure.

Photos & Video

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