Submitted by: CincyBearcats
| Location: | bowl to the NE of Lake Fork Peak |
| Date: | Jan 9, 2010 | Temp (C): | |
| Wind Speed: | Wind Direction: |
This was our first tour of the season in the Williams Lake area and wanted to check out the snowpack. There is a great skin/snowshoe track all the way to Williams Lake. We worked our way up into the bowl to the NE of Lake Fork Peak (due east of Williams Lake). We encountered a solid wind crust 4- to 8-in thick on the top surface. Two Rutschblock tests were done on a N-NE aspect. One failed while isolating the block (score 1), the other failed while stepping onto the block (score 2). In both cases, the wind crust at the surface was the first to fail. Also, the test block which scored a 1 proceeded to fail a second time when stepping onto the remaining block. The failure occurred at a 12-in thick hard slab approximately 3-ft below the original surface. This layer is most likely the result of the big wind event we had in early December (~8th). The pits for the Rutschblock tests were dug to a depth of ~7-ft, but the ground was not reached in either case. There has been a lot of wind deposition in this area.
There was evidence of natural slides on S-SE aspects in the same bowl. There were sizable cornices above the chutes with these aspects, so we didn't venture near them to do any stability tests.
The breakable crust made for some challenging and strenuous tuns on the way down. In general, I would avoid this area for a while. There were numerous tracks in the chutes with W aspects on the Wheeler side of the basin, but most of them looked quite bony.