February 5

Gobblers

Elevations, slope angles and aspects:

6200-10'200', angles to 40°, north facing aspects.

Avalanche activity:

Limited to surface sluffing and shallow new snow slides, both during the storm

surface sluffs

and from a period of north wind during the day. Daytime heating also produced some rollers on the south facing.

Slopes skied:

Gobblers main face, dead snag and the nose.

Snow conditions:

A cold clear night created another round of surface hoar formation and feathers

creek feathers

in both the sheltered lower elevations and to about 9500 on open slopes.

hanging feathers

Most of the hoar at mid and upper elevations was removed by the sun and a little wind during the day. A light wind was blowing enough snow to create shallow drifts, mainly on southeast facing. Cornice falls from the drifting did produce one shallow soft slab, 20' wide and 3-5" deep along the upper southeast facing ridge line. Sun warming also produced a few rollers. South facing is probably crusted from overnight cooling. New snow settled out to less than 12" at upper elevations.

Weather:

Partly cloudy with mid and low elevation clouds drifting through at times. Winds from the north at less than 15 mph. Moderate temperatures, cool in the shade and pleasant in the sun.

Evaluation:

Stability remains good with isolated potential from recent wind drifts. Current forecast indicates yet another prefrontal windy period so the drifting is likely to increase somewhat adding localized potential on lee aspects.

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