Road Conditions: A few inches of snow has fallen on the road since Grand County plowed on Tuesday. AWD and good tires required.
Grooming: A few inches of snow has fallen since Matt and Dave groomed on Tuesday. Traffic has packed things out into Gold Basin.
24 Hour Snow 0" 72 Hour Snow 19" Season Total Snow 74" Base Depth at Gold Basin 46"
Winds on Pre Laurel Peak NW 10-15
Temp 8F
Weather
A weak shortwave trough will bring cloudy skies and a chance for snow this morning. Any accumulation will be light. Northwest flow will keep things cold with high temps at 10,000' only getting up into the low teens. Partly cloudy skies tonight will give way to sunny and cold conditions tomorrow. Cold, dry weather lasts into next week.
Conditions are excellent, though still just a bit thin, and we found great turning and riding yesterday. We're now up to almost 20" of new snow at just over an 1.5" of water this week with the final 5" coming in at very low density. Cold temperatures and light winds have mostly preserved the snow though some due south aspects will be lightly crusted today. The recent snow has fallen on top of a very poor snowpack structure and the entire snowpack beneath the November 28 storm is loose, weak, and faceted. Incremental loading is keeping us in a dangerous state. Outward signs of instability aren't widespread but we did experience a good collapse yesterday on a westerly aspect, and natural activity during the storm is enough reminder of the danger we face.
Snowpack and Weather Data
In our travels yesterday we observed a handfull of natural avalanches that ran at some point during the storm cycle. Not very wide, I would describe them as "pockety" which makes it difficult to predict exactly where they are going to occurr. All occurred on northerly aspects and appeared to be 2'-3' deep which is defintely enough to cause you some serious problems. They likely failed on the faceted weak layer.
