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Wallowa Avalanche Center

Professional Observation

Basic Information

Observation Details

Observation Date:
December 16, 2020
Submitted:
December 16, 2020
Observer:
WAC - Victor McNeil
Zone or Region:
Blues
Location:
Spout Springs ski area

Signs of Unstable Snow

Recent Avalanches? 
None Observed
Cracking? 
None Experienced
Collapsing? 
None Experienced

Advanced Information

Weather Summary

Cloud Cover:
Overcast
Temperature:
-2
Wind:
Light , W

Light wind from the West, not moving much snow. Snow was pretty dense and heavy, from previous wind and warmer temperatures. Certainly a wind slab, with storm slab underneath.

Snowpack Observations

We observed nearly 12" of new snow from the past 48 hours. The new snow is sitting on an old crust, with the rest of the snowpack being facets and various crusts. The new load was adding a slab, creating reactivity in two of the old crust/sugar snow interfaces. Both our pits were on NE-N aspects at 5,400'. We had failure in both the extended column test and propagation saw test down 50cm or nearly 2'.

Photo shows where failure occurred on PST.

Avalanche Problems

Problem Location Distribution Sensitivity Size Comments
None Specified

Terrain Use

Stuck to pretty low angle terrain, especially with overall low coverage. There's still objects poking out of the snow. We weren't about to jump onto steep North facing slopes with the results we had in our snowpack tests.

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