Widespread cracking and collapsing on Tamarack Peak

We toured Tamarack Peak from the Far East Ridge up to the summit and out the ridge a ways north of the summit to Broken Glass Bowl. Along the way we triggered numerous and widespread snowpack collapses with the classic audible "whumph" sound. We triggered collapses on all of the aspects we traveled today, W-NW-N-NE-E aspects. Anywhere there was at least a moderate amount of NE wind protection, we triggered collapses. This occurred in areas of full shade and some areas with very little shade. On the west aspects the collapses occurred only in areas shaded by trees.

On many slopes we triggered long shooting cracks, some full slope width at around 300 feet long. Most of these we triggered on the sub 30 degree slopes that we were willing to engage with. The steepest area we propagated cracks out into from adjacent lower angle terrain was a section of 35 degree slope. The fact that this steeper section of slope did not avalanche after we triggered snowpack failure on it was the only unexpected item of the day.

Digging into the snowpack we could easily see the cracks going right down to the Dec 1 facet layer of concern, right at the old/new snow interface. Snowpit tests also showed propagating failure along the top of the Dec 1 weak layer of concern. The bottom of the slab of new snow was 1F hard and the faceted Dec 1 weak layer was F hard.

We saw one natural avalanche from Dec 1 in Broken Glass Bowl that is detailed in a separate observation. It appeared to have failed on the faceted weak layer at the old/new snow interface.