The Abajos picked up about 15" of snow this week accompanied by strong SW winds. This created dangerous avalanche conditions on Wed and Thur. The danger decreased on Friday into Saturday but is again on the rise as strong winds blow and drift snow. The greatest danger exists on steep slopes facing NW-N-E-SE but all slopes steeper than 30 degrees that have recent deposits of wind drifted snow are suspect. In some areas, avalanches triggered in the recent snow may step down to a buried persistent weak layer causing a deeper and more dangerous avalanche. Carrie Noonan and company were up yesterday and they found a reactive weak layer in the snowpack which caused them to turn around. The only way to know for sure if it is there is to dig down and look, and kudos to them for doing the work and making solid decisions. See their complete observation here.

My partners and I were up in the La Sals yesterday and we found similar conditions with blowing and drifting snow and reactive weak layers. See the video below for more on this.