The Double Hill avalanche is a bit of an outlier and in general it's been pretty quiet along the eastern front so far this season. With just about 18"-24" of total snow depth, there's barely enough snow to get around and travel. Unfortunately, these shallow, early season snow conditions aren't boding well for the future as our thin snowpack gets progressively weak and sugary over time. So yea, you know the drill.... once it starts storming or even if the wind ramps up again, it's gonna be sketchy. However, in the mean time, the avalanche danger is pretty straight-forward and a few fresh drifts along the leeward side of upper elevation ridges is today's main avalanche concern. Remember- it's still really thin out there and even a shallow slide can take you for a nasty ride through rocks and stumps barely hidden under our shallow snowpack.

Trent stomps on what we call a "test slope" which gives us a baseline to how to snow might react. A "test slope" is usually a road cut or similar terrain feature that has little or no consequence if it does avalanche. In this case, the snow was pretty was pretty well-behaved.

Weak, sugary snow pours off my mitten.... not a good setup if winter returns from its hiatus.