Make no mistake.... this is a dangerous setup and the exact type of conditions when most avalanche accidents occur. Now, the most important thing is returning to our families at the end of the day and the way to accomplish this is by exercizing some patience and allowing the snowpack to adjust to the yesterday's onslaught of snow, water, and wind. Look, it's no mystery what's going on here and recent snowpack history reveals that each time our pack has received a big thump of water, snow, and wind, dormant weak layers of snow have roared back to life. What we see are avalanches breaking deeper than we might expect, particularly in terrain facing the north half fo the compass where the snowpack is thin and weak. All we need to do is find one weakness, maybe around a bush or rock that we can't see buried underneath the snow, collapse the pack, and now we've triggered a slide that quickly gets out of hand. So here's the deal... we've got to think about not only the snow riding in, but also the snow we're riding on.

Now here's where it gets complicated- this setup isn't going to magically heal itself overnight, so avoidence is the key for the next few days. Simply avoid being on, underneath, or connected to steep slopes, especially those facing the north half of the compass. And here's your exit strategy... great riding conditions exist on low angle, low elevation slopes facing the south half of the compass. Done and done.

In the video above, Andy's snowpit stability test reveals a failure near the early January snow which has faceted. Add yesterday's big storm and you can clearly see how any slide that breaks to this layer is gonna be deep and dangerous.