Here's where we are with our current snowpack. We had a couple of storms earlier in October and November. Lots of the snow from those early storms melted off but some remained on the north facing terrain above about 9500'. As this snow hung around through a long dry period, it "faceted" turning it into loose sugary grains. There was about 12" of this stuff on those high north slopes prior to the Thanksgiving storms. The Thanksgiving storms buried it with about a foot of new snow. I noted only a small amount of avalanche activity that happened during that storm. Now, we've just added another 16 to 24" of new snow on top of that weak sugary snow near the ground.
To be honest, I don't really know how that old snow is reacting to our new snow load. I have not been able to travel into any of this terrain to do analysis. What I do know is there was enough old weak snow to be a concern. Enough so that I recommend not getting into this terrain until we see what's going on.
It's easy to stay out of trouble right now. Simply avoid the steep northerly facing slopes above 9500'. There is A ton of terrain that doesn't fall into this category. I did some skiing on an east facing slope at about 9100' in elevation on Friday. There was no old snow there. It was bare ground prior to the Thanksgiving storms. The snowpack was completely stable there.
If you have questions about where you are, dig down and see if you find any "sugary" snow near the ground. If you find sugary snow, keep you slope angles under 30 degrees or go to a different slope.
