January 10
Alta guard station-ne facing LSB-Cardiac ridge-Mill B south-Mineral Fork
Elevations, slope angles and aspects
7200-10600'-angles over 35°, all aspects.
Snow conditions
Surface hoar and near surface faceting at mid and lower elevations.
Day time heating eliminated many of the hoars.
Upper elevations retain wind effects from last Wednesday's storm with windboard, drifting and scouring. Aspect dependent, it skis very well.
Sun exposed slopes heated and produced small rollers in traveled terrain. No larger rollers or point release sluffing was observed.
Avalanche activity
Several collapses were felt and cracking in collapsed snow was observed in upper Mill B south. Aspect was west facing, over 10k.
Total snow was less than two feet, consisting of crust-facet sandwiches. A shallow wind drifted slab capped the weak snow, the reason for collapse.
Weather
Clear skies, mild temperatures. Winds were non existent.
Evaluation
Snow in terrain traveled through was mostly stable.
Collapsing in wind drifted, shallow snow locations indicates:
Instability would be from wind drifting on the wide variety of old snow layering.
In addition, weather guessers suggest slightly warmer temps than yesterday so..wet activity is likely to increase from day time heating.
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