I had a close call yesterday while doing control work on a rocky steep E-facing slope about 9000'. We had bombed the god out of the area the previous few days with no results, and were seeing only new snow avalanches yesterday. I stepped out onto a fresh, soft winddrift, and the slope collapsed and released on old facets near the ground, with big blocks carrying me down. I managed to dig into the bed surface (large rocks) about 15 feet down. Unknown to me at the time, the debris then triggered another wider deep slide below. It would have been a bad ride! I was out there expecting only new snow slides, but we must finally be reaching critical mass on the deeply buried weak layers. Tricky conditions! Stay safe, Jeff

(published with permission)

the fin crown shows my slide with new snow atop an old hard slab.

the fin shows my slide above and the wider slide below that was triggered by the debris from the first one.