December 27
Area:
Upper BCC
Location:
Silver and Days
Elevations, slope angles and aspects:
7500’-10000’, angles to 40°, all aspects
Avalanche activity:
New snow sluffs and soft slabs from a lack of bonding in Hideaway Park entry into Days Fork. Produced with ski cutting, up to 4” deep, running fast but not far and lacking punch.
Avalanche in upper Days on the side of the gully at lower entry into the upper basin. This was triggered from lower angled terrain, less than 30° steep. The slide was 50’ wide and up to about 20 inches deep. It only ran about 20’. Hard slab collapse failure on faceted snow, both above and below the rime crust. There was also a crack opened up in the low angled portion of the slide in a shallow snow area, which stepped down to near the ground into larger grained faceted snow. Nice little test slope.
There were also a couple of loose snow or soft slabs noted in upper Days with widths of less than 20’
Looking up canyon at the slide
A portion of the crown
30°-38° test slope
Slopes skied:
East pass of Silver, West bowl of Silver and Hideaway park, nw facing into Days Fork exiting to Spruces.
Snow Surface and conditions:
2-4” new snow over a variable and mostly crusted base. Continued drifting from the westerly winds. The wind exposed was often scoured to the rime crust, lee aspects drifted up to about 20”. Snow was of the medium density. Lower elevations have cooled, with less new snow.
Weather conditions:
Overcast with an instability shower and west winds to about 20 mph early in the day with some clearing and less wind later.
Evaluation:
As was reported yesterday the concern is from continued west winds drifting a forming hard slabs on lee aspects. I would expect this concern to continue, with a hazard of hard slab avalanche stepping down into weak and faceted old snow layering.
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