The image above is a slab triggered on Saturday by an extremely experienced, professional backcountry rider. Just a few turns into the slope, it collapsed and the slab broke above him, but fortunately he self-arrested on the bed surface and came out on top. This avalanche clearly illustrates the tricky nature of persistent slabs lurking on steep shady slopes throughout the range. What continues to make this setup tricky today is, the slab is starting to gain strength and allows you to get onto the slope before it fails. Once you've collapsed the slope, all bets are off and you're staring down the barrel of a scary slide.
So here's what's going on... we finally added enough weight for avalanches to begin breaking into weak layers of snow buried in the mid portion of our snowpack. Problem is, the avalanche danger isn't in your face. You don't look around and see avalanches everywhere. On the contrary... many steep slopes still remain in the balance today, just waiting for a trigger like us to roll up and knock the legs out from underneath it. Making the current setup even more tricky is the continued possibility of triggering a slide from low on the slope or even from a distance.
All of this doesn't mean you can't ride. It does mean you need to stay off of and out from under steep, wind drifted slopes. By now you know the usual suspects to avoid... steep, upper elevation, shady slopes, especially those facing the north half of the compass.
The avalanche danger is pretty apparent right out of the gates. A small avalanche like the one pictured above gives me a huge piece of information about the snow stability and the type of avalanche dragon I'm dealing with. And here's a viddy describing the setup.