Thin, shallow, steep, and rocky -- Slopes like the one above are suspect, and the red arrows indicate places the snowpack is most susceptible, and where we are most likely to trigger an avalanche as a rider.

The likelihood of triggering a persistent slab avalanche is going down, but it is still possible as a rider to trigger a slide breaking 2-5' deep, hundreds of feet wide, that takes out the entire season's snowpack. Recent storms added more depth than weight to our snowpack, and although we stacked up 2-3' of snow over the past two weeks, it only totaled to about 1.75" of SWE. This additional load did not make the snowpack hyper-sensitive, and recent avalanches failing deep and breaking wide have required big triggers like a cornice, or smaller avalanches to step-down.

Suspect terrain is steep, rocky, wind-affected slopes facing northwest through east that have a shallower snowpack (<3'). It is a bit like Minesweeper out there -- Although the likelihood of us triggering a large avalanche has gone down, if we play the game enough and keep putting tracks in terrain where this avalanche problem exists, we are bound to hit the mine eventually. How do we lose the game? All we need to do is find a thin portion of the snowpack around a rock or bush, collapse the weak layer (whumpf), and now we're staring down the barrel of a dangerous avalanche. Remember, today's avalanches are tricky, unmanageable slides. Instead of trying to outsmart the avalanche, avoidance is my go-to tool, and I will steer clear of this problem until it goes away.

Ted was taking a look at things around 10,000' near the East Fork where he found a shallow, weak snowpack less than 3' that has a similar structure to that of deeper parts of the range.

Near Anchor Peak, the red arrows above show recent wind slabs breaking near rocks and ridges. I would expect to find fresh drifts on similar, specific terrain features today.

For the past 24 hours, winds blowing from the northeast in conjunction with our recent, light-density, storm snow have created sensitive drifts up to 2' deep in upper elevations that will be reactive to the additional weight of a rider. I am dealing with this avalanche problem by looking for and avoiding fat, rounded pillows of snow, especially on the leeward side of ridges, chutes, gully walls, and cut banks. Today's drifts can be hard or soft, and we may not trigger them until we are well out onto the slope already. Also, keep an eye out for sensitive cornices, as they go hand in hand with today's wind slabs. Remember, these small wind drifts can step down and fail into deeper weak layers within the snowpack, triggering a larger slide than we originally expected.

A small, fresh, wind-slab that pulled out under a rock band on Notch Mountain and most likely failed during periods of strong winds yesterday.