It was pretty much inevitable that we were going to have a Persistent Weak Layer avalanche problem after the long dry spell in January. Weak faceted snow formed during that time. It is most pronounced above about 8500' on the north half of the compass. It is now capped off with a thin dense slab of snow which was reactive yesterday. There were no natural avalanches but the snowpack was collapsing during my travels. This indicates all you would need is a steep enough slope to trigger an avalanche. Be sure to CHECK THIS OBSERVATION that I compiled from Thursday for more details on the current situation.

As of now, the new snow slab is fairly thin and collapsing is spotty. The chances of triggering an avalanche are not all that great and they will be fairly small. This could change next week if it snows like weather models are predicting. Bottom line, anticipate things to get dangerous as we add more snow to our weak snowpack.

Here's some more info about our current situation: