Gunsight11/2/2022
Today’s travel was up to Gunsight and Eddies High Nowhere at the still closed Alta ski area. Gunsight is NE facing slope at 10,000ft, Eddies is around the same elevation, but due E facing. There was about 4 to 5 inches of new snow when we started and it was closing in on 8 inches a few hours later when we left. The new snow was fairly light density with no wind effect in the terrain covered. The main instability today was sluffing in steeper terrain on all aspects. On the NE the underlying snow has weakened and the new snow was not bonding well. On the E and SE there is a melt freeze crust that the new snow was also not bonding too. These sluffs were totally manageable and not packing much punch but in extreme terrain they possibly could carry you over rocks and other obstacles. I dug a quick pit at 9,800ft and found a right side up snowpack that was damp at the bottom and fairly compacted, the depth was around 2 and a half feet. I would expect the new snow instabilities to settle out but the high N may still be suspect, especially with more loading and with any sustained winds all bets will be off.
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