February 5

Porter fork-Gobblers Knob

Elevations, slope angles and aspects

6200-10400', angles over 35°, all aspects.

Snow conditions

Couple or three inches of light density over dense snow over crust.

Refrozen rain crust at lower elevations provided a solid base on the up to over 8k.

Spongy above that elevation.

Wind pack cap off the top.

Snow creep with icicles observed.

creep

Weather

Foggy to overcasr skies, cool temperatures with light wind from the west.

Avalanche activity

roof-slide

Exstensive roof avalanching was observed along the Porter fork road, probably a day or two old, occuring during the rain.

clean-slate

The main face of Gobblers slid during the storm, covered by 6-8" of recent snow.

Third time's the charm as the debris over ran previous slides, covering brush in run outs.

Fracture line was lower on the slope encompassing the nose through dead snag, 2500 vertical or so.

Evaluation

Good stability in the area with surface sluffing.

Isolated potential for slides breaking into older recrystallized layering.

Would expect future instability to be from warming temperatures + any period of wind.

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