Public Observation

Observation Details

Observations

Toured to the summit of Mt. Warren today. The Pogonip was thick and the air temp was about 10 deg at 0800 at the trailhead. Lundy Rd is one lane and blown in with snow. Spicy but doable.

The lower moraine has a coating of surface hoar from the Pogonip.

No meaningful wind effects until we reached the alpine. Up there we found an assortment of wind board and sastrugi. The sastrugi evidenced both the southerly and northerly wind directions. Given the strong winds lately, I was surprised to find evidence of only a couple recent avalanches, both on north and NE facing slopes in obvious catchment zones. Both slides have been fairly obscured by the recent north winds, so they likely ran at least a couple days ago.

There are some pretty beefy cornices throughout the alpine on north and northeast aspects.

Winds were light and from the NW in the alpine and what little soft snow remained available for transport moved slowly and gently on the snow surface.

Temps stayed cold all day and we saw no evidence of wet loose concerns, thanks to the inversion. We did see one large crack in a NE wind loaded section in the alpine that was attached to a cornice that appears to have failed. Other than that, no signs of instability.

Not sure who maintains the comms unit at the top of Mt. Warren, but it's been blown off its foundation and appears to be just one big wind storm away from toppling.

The snow coverage as far as the eye could see looks GREAT!

Observed Avalanches

Signs of Unstable Snow