December 7
Location:
Solitude lower lot to the Monitors, exiting out to Silver Fork lodge.
Elevations, slope angles and aspects:
7500'-10'200', angles to 35 °+, all aspects.
Avalanche activity:
Sluffing within the new snow on breakovers.One of those ran a hundred feet or so. it was only about 15' wide.
Localized cracking along the ridges in shallow wind drifts.
No other activity
Slopes skied:
West Monitor bowl, skier's right side because it had the only old snow. South Monitor skier's right, same reason. Both ene facing. Will's Hill nw facing skier's right side. Out past the beaver ponds to Silver Fork lodge.
Snow conditions:
8-12" new snow over a non existent to variable crusted base. No collapsing. Cracking along the ridge line in wind drifted areas. Those were soft and fairly limited involving only the most recent snow. A bit of warming in the afternoon stiffened the new snow creating a density inversion near the surface.
Weather:
Light to moderate snow showers during the day. Some short periods of partial clearing. Winds were from the west and less than 10mph. Moderate temperatures.
Snow pit:
Evaluation:
Instabilities limited to new snow layering in the area traveled through. Some concern exists for deeper weak layering on sheltered north facing slopes down off the ridges. These were avoided because of this concern. While no evidence was seen of instabilities on those aspects I wouldn't be surprised to see natural activity as the load increases during the forecast storm. Increased winds will easily drift the light density snow, increasing potential for avalanche.