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Weather Summary

A mix of sun and high clouds. SW winds were in the 20's gusting in the 40's on ridgelines easily transporting snow mainly above treeline.

Avalanche Observations

#	Date	Location	Size	Type	Bed Sfc	Depth	Trigger	Comments	Photo
1	Past 24 hours	Long Canyon NE 12,000	D2.5	HS	G-Ground	3 - 5	N-Natural	Large natural avalanche on NE aspect in Long Canyon. This avalanche was more recent than rest of the avalanches that happened early Tuesday morning. It failed on facets below a thick hard slab and ran just above the ground on a crust layer.

Widespread avalanches on the East side of the Long Canyon extending over to South aspects back in the bowl. Most of these avalanches appeared to have run early Tuesday morning as crowns are filled back in from snow and wind loaded snow. The big avalanche appears to have run in the last 24 hours as wind loading has not filled in the crown.

We got word from Henry who was skiing on the Wheeler Peak wilderness side of life and reported that there was some natural avalanche activity on the backside of Kachina Peak that happened in the mid morning hours.

Snowpack Observations

Continue to get widespread collapsing and cracking at all elevations. Solar aspects especially below treeline have been taking heat and formed crusts on the surface. Widespread surface hoar on the surface today. SW winds in the 20's gusting in the 40's was easily transporting snow mainly above treeline loading East and North aspects.

There's a lot going on right now in the snowpack. Below treeline 2 to 3 feet of new snow sits on top of very weak facets and depth hoar. Based on how much collapse I was getting I suspect that slabs are losing their ability to propagate wide distances at these elevations, but we have seen propagation upwards of 300' at these elevations.

Above treeline winds are easily transporting and loading slopes on North and East aspects stressing faceted weak layers below hard slabs. These hard slabs can hold more weight than just the weak snow found below treeline that had lacked a slab. This wind loaded snow is two things of importance. First it's loading slopes that hadn't avalanched and putting a great deal of deep persistent weak layers. The second is that its loading bed surfaces from paths that had already run in the last couple of days with wind slabs that are forming on a smooth bed surface.

Avalanche Problems

Problem	Location	Distribution	Sensitivity	Size	Comments
Persistent Slab	N E S W	Isolated Specific Widespread	Unreactive Stubborn Reactive Touchy	D1 D1.5 D2 D2.5 D3 D3.5 D4 D4.5 D5
Wind Slab	N E S W	Isolated Specific Widespread	Unreactive Stubborn Reactive Touchy	D1 D1.5 D2 D2.5 D3 D3.5 D4 D4.5 D5	Winds slabs are forming and the concern is they are forming on top of bed surfaces from natural avalanches that ran early Tuesday morning.