Broads Fork3/17/2022 ++ Reminder, Donations on Mark's Venmo are greatly appreciated++
Mark-White-240 Went to Broads Fork today not knowing what to expect. I was thinking that there might be some glide avalanche activity from the warm temperatures but there wasn’t, luckily there were some large slides from the storm last week. I noted large avalanches on Bonkers, and the Diving Board. The new snow had drastically settled out and has a nice blanket of graupel on it. The avalanche on the Diving Board covered about half the slope and that’s where I put my skin track. As always I probed the snow on my way up and was finding a hard bed surface with a about 3 inches of spongy snow topped off with a few inches of graupel. The graupel was much deeper in some places due to pooling. I did venture out on to the part of the slope that did not avalanche and found a slab sitting on a weaker layer so I decided to ski right on the flank of the avy path for safety reasons. I think the warm temperatures the last few days have helped to stabilize the pack. Seems like most terrain below 9000ft got damp then last nights clear cold night locked things up. Not so sure about what’s going on up high. Not saying we’re in the clear by any means but things are healing. Broads Fork is kind of an entity of its own, and when the heat is on it’s not a good place to be due to large unpredictable glide avalanches coming off the rock slabs up high. It stayed cold today due to the N flow but might not stay cold tomorrow. As always I’ve got my own way of assessing the snow pack and going where I go may not be in your best interest. (that’s my disclaimer). Also the approach to Broads starts at a low elevation and walking in and out is required. There is also some serious breakable crust at the mid elevations.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.If you are enjoying the observations, please consider donating on VenmoMark-White-240 Archives
January 2024
Categories |