Professional Observation

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Snow Stability

Key Points

Wondered into McGee creek today with the hopes of surveying new snow totals, and the damage from our recent north winds. We opted to head to the Wine Glass couloir and were pleasantly surprised with what we found.

There are a couple dry patches on the road to the summer trail head but access and egress went pretty smooth for us all things considered.

New snow accumulations from last weekend’s storm very depending on elevation and aspect. From the creek to the top of the stem of the wine glass we observed wide swaths of old snow surface, dust on crust conditions and areas with upwards of 4” of wind kissed new snow.

The Upper headwall of the wine glass is holding 6-8” of new snow with drifted areas up to 12”. We were pleasantly surprised to find that our recent north winds have not stripped too much of this face and found these to be the most pleasant turns of the day.

Isolated pockets of wind compacted snow were observed in cross-loaded areas and some isolated cracking was observed. the largest chunk of snow I got to move was probably about 5” about the size of a coffee table. More southerly catchment zones may have more concerning deposits, but no sizable wind slab was observed on our tour today.

Descending the couloir we found surfaces to be largely enjoyable but still variable and challenging at times. Several rocks buried just below the surface were encountered and we left a decent amount of ptex behind. We also found several areas of old slick snow surface that kept us honest.

Solar’s in the lower McGee drainage are all but completely dry. The first continuous slidable surface is in the SE gully off Mt Aggie but that is get pretty thin in its own right. More substantial coverage exists deeper in the range towards the crest.