Blackmore

Thin down low but powder up high. Today I skinned in and skied around the E side of the N ridges coming down off of Blackmore. The snow is about 2’ deep off of the ridge down to the bottom of the bowl on the east faces, with variations where the wind has loaded/stripped the snow. The wind was gusting out of the N/NW/W. Very powderific up there! The trail coming out is pretty exciting right now.

I did a tiny ECT in a pit I dug about 20’ down from the saddle that belongs to that little ridge that shoots off N of Blackmore proper summit. The saddle to the lookers right as you first gain the bowl on the trail coming in. The snow was about 2’ deep and I got a Q3 shear on ECT 26. There’s a rotten layer about 4” off the ground where the shear occurred. I observed some natural loose dry sluffs on the N face and the E face off the N ridge. They look like they came down in the last 24 hours with this new snow and wind; they were still fairly defined when I saw them. I think it’s pretty reasonable to expect these kinds of loose dry sluffs to persist with the incoming storm; areas where the snow has been loaded onto cliffy areas have been showing a lot of activity. Pretty much any nice looking, nicely angled snow loaded couilar or gulley on these aspects is likely to react even without a skier trigger based on my observations from this past week and what I saw today.