Ted visited the Humpy Drainage yesterday and noted these recent sled triggered slides in terrain that fits our bulls-eye profile.
From tip to tail, polar aspects at all elevations, harbor our most recent problem child, the well preserved and aptly named January Drought Layer (JDL). This faceted snow is extremely weak, and teeters on the edge with last weeks colossal storm... 2'-3' of snow and up to 3" of SWE, in some areas across the range.
Here's where it gets tricky... left to it's own devices the snowpack will slowly heal, eventually becoming comfortable in its own skin. But when we roll along and suddenly knock the legs out from underneath, we provoke todays persistent slab avalanche problem, instantly bring it back to life, and crash the entire roof down on top of us. Making the problem more severe is and any slide triggered will be large, up to 4' deep, and break hundreds of feet wide across the slope, connecting the dots and blowing through terrain feature like trees and rock outcrops.
When I think of bullseye terrain where I could trigger a dangerous slide I'm thinking low on the slope where a warehouse full of snow hangs above me... places like Currant Creek Peak, Heber Mountain, Mill Hollow, Wolf Creek Bowl, or Humpy Creek come to mind. I'm also thinking about cut-banks, gullies, and small terrain features that we usually don't consider twice about playing on, but our current set-up is deceiving and this terrain fits the mold.
We typically would view the slope on the right as being more intimidating, and scary when it comes to avalanches, but the slope on the left is where our greatest concern lays... protected, wind-sheltered terrain is where a majority of our human-triggered avalanches are occurring and snowpack is most reactive.
