February 4
Area:
Silver Fork, Days Fork and Mill D North Fork
Elevations, slope angles and aspects:
7’000’-10’000’, angles to 35°+ all aspects except south facing.
Avalanches:
West Desolation ridge, elevation:9800’, aspect: north facing, angle: 35°+, 20’ wide running 4-500’vertical over a rock band. There was another natural slide in the same small area. Shooting cracks at several times while traversing the ridge. No other activity observed.
Slopes skied:
Down and Out Into West bowl of Silver, Many Splendors off the ridge into Days Fork and west ridge Desolation into Mill D north fork.
Snow surfaces and conditions:
Silver and Days fork have numerous old tracks on most available ski terrain,. Ridgelines are scoured from the northwest winds. Variety of crusts and sandboxing. Mill D north fork is much the same. Outside of the heavily skied area old snow is marginally supportable. The ridgelines don’t have the same extensive scouting, with some recent load over the facet crust sandwich, the reason for the above listed slides.
Trails are packed out to the point of seeming groomed.
Weather:
Overcast skies with much warmer temperatures. Some misty light snow for much of the day. Winds along the ridges remain out of the northwest. Even though the temperatures were warmer, not much change noted in the existing snow.
Evaluation:
Snow remains quite sensitive in localized areas. Drifting encountered today was shallow, less than a foot deep and scattered. Cracking was noted but, no collapses were felt. Warmer temperatures may have settled out some of the instability but, since faceted snow is the predominate weak layer, I’d expect the wind loaded, scattered like buckshot, to remain sensitive.
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